Mysterious disease strikes canines’ nervous systems

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The disease that took Alexi’s life has a lot of veterinarians baffled.

The frisky boxer puppy had been a snuggly delight to her 17-year-old owner, Amber Putnam of Paola, Kan.

But when Alexi became ill last winter, her condition deteriorated with alarming speed. She stopped eating; she had trouble urinating. Her eyes turned glassy; her nose became dry and crusty.

Alexi was struck down by dysautonomia, a mysterious animal disease that attacks the nervous system and almost always is fatal within a matter of weeks.

Veterinarians don’t know what causes dysautonomia. And there is no cure, just palliative care to make dogs less uncomfortable in their final days.

Researchers have just begun to look for the cause of the disease. Some research suggests it is most common in late winter and early spring.

What makes dysautonomia still more mystifying is that since it first appeared in the United States 18 years ago, it has remained localized in the Midwest. Western Missouri and eastern Kansas have been the hot spot of the disease.

Of the millions of dogs in the Midwest, hundreds are dying from dys-autonomia every year – maybe 100 a year in the Kansas City, Mo., area alone – veterinarians estimate.

And the disease shows no sign of going away.

“You kind of get a gut feeling about it, and in our neck of the woods, this is a fairly common disease,” said Dennis O’Brien, University of Missouri-Columbia veterinarian. As more veterinarians learn about the disease, he said, more cases are being diagnosed correctly.

O’Brien, a specialist in neurology, is recognized as one of the leading U.S. experts on dysautonomia. He has been tracking the disease since 1986, when it made its first U.S. appearance in a Kansas City house cat named Floyd.

A few other cats developed dysautonomia after Floyd died, but by 1988, the disease had made its way to dogs. First, there was a case in southern Missouri, followed by others in Colorado and Wyoming.