Dog owners on high alert, risk to humans low after pet dog dies of avian flu

Experts are warning GTA residents to be hypervigilant after a pet dog died of avian flu in Oshawa. The news comes as a Toronto official confirms to CityNews that avian flu has been detected in the city.

The dog was infected after chewing on a wild goose. It’s the only case of its kind in Canada so far.

Toronto Animal Services confirmed there have been six confirmed cases in birds tested between late 2021 and the end of 2022 and one raccoon that tested positive in late 2022.

The city and Toronto Public Health continue to monitor the situation.

While the risk to humans is low, more avian flu cases are being reported in birds in nearby regions, and dog owners are on high alert.

Matthew Miller, director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research, said, in some ways, it was inevitable that this would happen.

“We do know domestic animals like dogs and cats are susceptible to influenza virus,” said Miller. “We’ve already heard reports of skunks and raccoons and other scavenger animals becoming infected, almost certainly because they fed on carcasses of dead birds.”

The current global outbreak of avian flu has killed a record number of birds and infected mammals.

After receiving multiple calls from residents reporting sick, dying or dead birds, several other municipalities in Ontario have now confirmed cases of avian flu, including Mississauga this week.

While H5N1 can be extremely dangerous to humans, experts say the risk to the general public remains low.

“Right now, there’s no evidence this virus spreads efficiently from human to human. Most of the time, humans are what we call a dead-end host,” said Miller. “They become profoundly sick, but they don’t easily spread it to other humans.”

Pet owners are being advised to keep their pets from consuming or playing with dead wild birds found outside and to avoid feeding pets any raw meat from game birds or poultry.

There’s no risk to humans when handling raw meat purchased from grocery stores and butchers.

“It’s important to remember human cases of avian flu are extremely rare and almost always contracted after direct contact with infected birds,” Miller added.