Man’s Best Friend?

People love dogs and I am no exception to that. Dogs are increasingly getting closer and closer to our everyday lives…sharing car rides, accompanying us to the grocery store and cuddling with us at night. Most of us never give a thought to diseases we can get from them, because we take them to the vet, give them baths when they’re stinky and feed them lots of yummy Scooby snacks to keep them fat and happy.

As a dog lover, I’m thrilled that my professional research has taken me down a path that necessitates studying the health of dogs.

Rachel Santymire, Ph.D., director of the zoo’s Davee Center for Epidemiology and Endocrinology, and I returned to our study site in beautiful Montana to reconnect with our partners, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

It’s not hard to see why Montana is called “Big Sky Country.”

We’ve been working with the Cheyenne Tribe since 2009 on a large project aimed at reintroducing the endangered black-footed ferret. However, as so often happens, our research has taken us down a side path. While driving around the area and talking with local residents, we noticed a large population of “reservation dogs,” as they are affectionately called by the locals. They are impossible to miss: roaming the streets and looking for handouts wherever they can find them.

Dogs know where to go to get the best snacks.

These are dogs that are not owned, or perhaps they are “community-owned,” in the sense that residents in different neighborhoods may look out for them. We had to wonder—with no veterinary clinic anywhere near the reservation and a high level of poverty among the residents—what kind of health are these dogs in? And how is their health affecting the people who care for them and the wildlife with which they interact, including the black-footed ferret?

Over the last few years, we conducted a survey to get at these questions. We visited the reservation twice to get a better understanding of typical ownership practices and how these practices may influence disease risk. We found that the majority of residents did own dogs, and these dogs spend the majority of time outdoors. This was to be expected as the dog is a very sacred animal to the Northern Cheyenne people. Many people see them not only as friends but also as their protectors.

We were happy to find the majority of dog owners took advantage of the yearly rabies clinic, and the vaccination coverage significantly reduced the spread of rabies. However, with no clinic on the reservation, very few people took their dogs to the vet for routine veterinary care.

So what does this mean for the health of the dogs? Well, most dog owners saw fleas and ticks on their pets who had received little preventive care for parasites like fleas and ticks. Mange is common among the dogs roaming the streets and can greatly reduce their survival rates during the winter months.

Mange is a common affliction among the dogs roaming the reservation.

And if parasites are on dogs there’s a good chance these bugs can be transmitted to humans. While fleas and ticks are annoying to dogs, the diseases they carry are a lot more serious to human health. Fleas carry the bacteria that is responsible for plague, a disease that has been known to wipe out entire towns of prairie dogs, the main prey of the black-footed ferret. Plague has also killed two people in Colorado this year, so the threat to human health is very real and near.

Many people interact with the dogs on a daily basis, which is not surprising when you consider walking is the primary mode of transportation.

People walking around town are often followed by dogs looking for food.

However, we found that people are getting bitten by these free-roaming dogs and are finding it hard to walk anywhere anymore. We are working very closely with the Indian Health Services, who are responsible for the spay/neuter/vaccination clinics, to create education materials on what to do if bitten to reduce the likelihood of getting a disease from these animals.

Getting bitten by a dog alone can be a big health problem, but we were surprised to see that just having contact with free-roaming dogs can have a significant impact on human health. We found that people who came into contact with dogs at least once per week were more likely to have symptoms associated with gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases. While there may be other factors that influence this association, it’s important to recognize the impact these dogs may have on human health. Free-roaming dogs are generally considered to be in poor health given the lack of veterinary care, and have a high degree of contact with other animals like cows that can increase exposure to certain diseases.

Domestic animals like cows are a common site in town.

Identifying the risks to dog and human health is the first step toward seeing the impact these animals have not only on humans, but on other native wildlife as well.

Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) are the fastest animals in North America. These antelope-like ungulates are also the only surviving species of their taxonomic family.

Mary Beth Manjerovic, Ph.D.

Mary Beth Manjerovic, Ph.D. Mary Beth Manjerovic, Ph.D., is a Wildlife Disease Ecologist at Lincoln Park Zoo’s Davee Center for Epidemiology and Endocrinology and Urban Wildlife Institute. In addition to her work conserving the endangered black-footed ferret, she is also investigating how frog health in the Chicagoland area is tied to stress levels and the presence of the deadly chytrid fungus.

Learn More

On the Plains
A black-footed ferret surveys the scene after emerging from a burrow.

From the Lab to the Reservation Rachel Santymire discusses the cutting-edge technology being employed to manage the breeding population of black-footed ferrets and how scientists are partnering with conservationists and communities to create healthy, thriving, wild populations.

A Spotlight on Black-Footed Ferrets Rachel Santymire sets out for Arizona to evaluate the health and reproduction of wild ferrets, see which issues they’re encountering and compare these traits to captive ferrets.

Back in the Field to Save Black-Footed Ferrets Rachel Santymire returns to the wilds of Badlands National Park for her latest work to conserve one of the rarest animals in North America: black-footed ferrets.

Northern Cheyenne Dog Days of Summer Mary Beth Manjerovic and Rachel Santymire return to the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Lame Deer, Montana, to assess the free-roaming dog population and survey residents on dog ownership practices and encounters.