The Jackson County Animal Services reopened on November 28, Tuesday, after temporarily closing its doors to the public, including volunteers, days before Thanksgiving due to the unusual respiratory illness sickening dogs across the country.
The Jackson County Health & Human Services Department (JCHHS) announced the animal shelter’s temporarily closure on November 21, Tuesday.
In a statement, JCHHS wrote, “Effective immediately, the shelter will be closed to the public and its usual activities to manage what appears to be a type of respiratory illness mimicking kennel cough.”
According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, the director of JCHHS, Stacy Brubaker, said that about a third of the shelter’s 100 dogs appear to have respiratory illnesses.
However, Brubaker is not sure which dogs have kennel cough or the mysterious illness. But she said that that they want to do their part to minimize the spread of the respiratory illness.
“As we see more and more dogs becoming symptomatic, we must put measures into place to manage the spread of illness and the treatment of the animals exhibiting these symptoms,” JCHHS said.
A week after temporarily closing, the Southern Oregon animal shelter finally reopened on November 28.
However, Brubaker said that pet adoption will not resume until at least December 5 but hopes they can open again since more people tend to adopt pets around the holiday season.
“All of us just are doing our best,” Brubaker told Oregon Public Broadcasting.
According to the Oregon Department of Agriculture, they have detected more than 200 cases of the new canine respiratory illness.
It starts out as a simple cough, but lasts for several weeks and doesn’t respond to typical treatments, leaving the dog with severe pneumonia.