Dog with deadly infection at Front Street shelter forces Sacramento site to close to strays
Sacramento’s Front Street Animal Shelter will not accept stray dogs for at least two weeks after a dog tested positive for a highly contagious and dangerous bacterial infection while boarded at the facility.
Shelter officials made the call Thursday morning after the dog was diagnosed Wednesday with Streptococcus zooepidemicus, or strep zoo. The rare, often-fatal bacterial infection can cause hemorrhagic pneumonia that leads infected dogs to bleed into their lungs and airways.
“To prevent this deadly infection from spreading to other dogs, the shelter will not be accepting any healthy stray dogs for at least two weeks,” shelter officials said in a statement Thursday. “This will help save lives as well as allow the shelter to get back to normal operations as soon as possible.”
The infected dog, who was also being treated for heartworm, was euthanized after its condition grew worse despite treatments to combat the bug, said shelter spokesman Phillip Zimmerman.
Front Street isn’t yet declaring an outbreak— officials are still awaiting lab results — but Zimmerman on Thursday said the infected stray “exposed quite a few dogs,” adding that the shelter is expecting to see more dogs test positive for the canine respiratory infection.
Every dog in the downtown Sacramento shelter has since been tested and is being treated with injectable antibiotics, Zimmerman said. Front Street Shelter housed 131 dogs as of 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Front Street veterinarians are awaiting lab results from those tests administered Wednesday to determine how many other shelter dogs have been infected.
“It is treatable. We’re hoping by the end of the day that we will get the results back (from the tests) that we sent out last night,” Zimmerman said Thursday. “We don’t know if there is an outbreak yet. The results will let us know how serious this is.”
Strep zoo is an upper respiratory infection similar to but more serious than the more common kennel cough detected in shelter environments where animals are in close contact with each other.
Though Zimmerman said strep zoo is rare, he said the infection has been detected in shelters across the country from Arizona to Florida to Washington state.
Despite the Thursday announcement, Front Street officials say they will continue to respond to reports of sick, injured and dangerous dogs, working with local clinics and shelters to house and treat the animals.
Front Street will also continue to hold dog adoptions by appointment during the closure. However, because strep zoo is so infectious, the dogs can only be adopted to homes without other dogs and they must be kept away from other dogs for at least 14 days, shelter officials said.
Shelter officials are also asking for the public’s help, seeking temporary emergency foster homes for dogs to help blunt the infection’s spread to dogs at the downtown shelter. Officials there say the Front Street shelter is at capacity.
Register to become an emergency foster home at HelpFrontStreet.org
This story was originally published January 6, 2022 at 1:43 PM.
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