If you have a dog, it's likely that over the past few months, you've been hearing about a new canine respiratory illness.

But how worried should you really be?

We are constantly seeing infections that are the same viruses or bacteria, but perhaps are a more severe form, just like with COVID.

It's Tuesday, January 30th, and you guessed it, today is Science Friday.

I'm SciFri producer Deep Petersmith. There's been a lot of reporting about a quote-unquote

mysterious canine respiratory illness going around. And in the age of the internet, it's hard to

know just how widespread this thing is and how concerned dog owners should be.

A good thing is that there's been a massive effort to break down the genomics of this potential pathogen.

Guest host Ariel Dumas speaks with Dr. Deborah Silverstein, professor of critical care medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, to help break down what's going on here.

Thanks for joining me.

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you.

So just so we're clear on what we're talking about here, what exactly are the symptoms of this illness?

Well, the illness that you are likely referring to, which has recently been dubbed the mysterious dog illness. Well, the illness that you are likely referring to, which has recently been dubbed

the mysterious dog illness, is something that we've actually been seeing for many years and

more commonly refer to it as the canine infectious respiratory disease complex, or CIRDC, as an abbreviation. And it's a very close relative of what you

previously mentioned to be kennel cough, except we now know that kennel cough is really more than just

one bug or one infection, but rather it's several different potential organisms that can affect dog's respiratory

tracks and lead to the common signs of coughing and possibly nasal discharge and eye discharge

and sometimes make them even feel sick and not want to eat or play with their normal energy levels.

And in rare cases, can lead to pneumonia and even life-threatening illness.

What we've been seeing in the past couple years are perhaps some more severe bacteria or

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