An emergency medical clinic in Ann Arbor, Michigan spoke with reporters about incidents of an unknown virus they’ve seen in their clinic. Unfortunately, they linked it to to the “circovirus in Ohio,” even though it has different symptoms, no tissue samples have been taken from the Michigan dogs, the Michigan Veterinary Association has not made an official statement and there is no word from that state’s Department of Agriculture or state veterinarian. Oh, and it hasn’t been confirmed that circovirus even played a role in the death of dogs here in Ohio.

The symptoms in Michigan include extreme lethargy, vomiting and bloody diarrhea and a very short period of illness followed by death, 12-24 hours. In some instances the affected dogs’ owners had also been ill.  Even more alarming, the clinic also said that some dogs were asymptomatic, but necropsy turned up similar findings.

The thing is, this is just coming out of one vet clinic– and the statements have been made by a very young veterinarian, Dr. Lindsay Ruland (a 2009 graduate) and these remarks were picked up by the media– with everyone jumping to conclusions. We don’t know what these people saw in their clinic. They don’t know what they saw in their clinic, other than it involved an uptick in cases involving a parvo-like virus.

The advice remains the same. If your dog is ill, take the dog to the vet. There are no cures yet for affected dogs, but those that get early intervention make good recoveries.

In the meantime, just stay calm and wait ’till we know something more about this from a more reliable source.