Chlamydia in dogs: clinical symptoms, signs, treatment regimen.

Like people, our beloved dogs also sometimes become ill with infectious pathologies. And this topic is extremely interesting (for infectious disease specialists, of course), because the study of some pathogens does not stop to this day. This is caused both by the danger to humans and by the characteristics of the microorganisms themselves. A good example is chlamydia in dogs. Experts still do not know how many strains there are and what their danger is to animals and people. Sometimes chlamydia is completely asymptomatic, without causing any special complications, while in other cases not only pets, but also people who have had some contact with them become seriously ill.

What is chlamydia

Chlamydia is an intracellular gram-negative bacteria. In their desire to “get” inside the host cells, they are similar to viruses, which are also intracellular parasites. This is precisely the main danger of chlamydial infection - any organ, any tissue of the dog’s body can be affected.

In the recent past, a taxonomy with two genera was used in veterinary medicine and medicine, but scientists have long proven the “underestimation” of this group of microorganisms. It turned out that there are much more of them, and therefore their systematization is much more difficult. It is now believed that there is only one species and nine strains (abortus, caviae, felis, muridarum, pecorum, pneumoniae, psittaci, suis and trachomatis). A comparison of the genome showed that the difference between many subtypes is extremely insignificant, which suggests great variability and the possibility of the existence of “transitional” varieties in nature. This assumption is partly confirmed by the fact that relatively recently researchers discovered two new strains - C. avium and C. gallinacea.

Definition of disease

Chlamydia is a disease caused by such types of chlamydia as Chlamidofila psittaki and Chiamidophila abortus. The disease progresses from year to year, and today we can already say that there are more pathogens. Moreover, some of them cannot be classified as either viruses or bacteria, since they do not have a position in the general qualifications. The disease is extremely dangerous due to the fact that some of its forms are practically untreatable even with the most powerful antibiotics of the latest generation.

Chlamydia is a very insidious and contagious disease that often occurs without any symptoms.

Another danger lies in the fact that chlamydia living in the body of a young animal does not manifest itself in any way. The dog appears healthy and is a carrier of the disease. Symptoms will only appear when the immune system begins to weaken due to other infections.

No less terrifying is the fact that the disease has a wide variety of symptoms.

The presence of chlamydia in the body can be indicated by such problems as:

Conjunctivitis.

Abortion.

Disorders of the gastrointestinal tract.
Problems with the upper respiratory tract, etc.

Many puppies also suffer from chlamydia arthritis, which is expressed by pain in the limbs and an increase in body temperature to critical levels.

Important. It is impossible to establish an accurate diagnosis at home, since there are no specific symptoms of the disease.

It is also worth mentioning whether chlamydia is transmitted from dogs to humans. Anyone can become infected, and people do not always find out about it in time. The disease is often secretive, worsening the general condition of the body from year to year. In women, spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) are a clear sign; men suffer from the genital form, which consists of damage to the genitourinary organs.

Chlamydia can be transmitted from dogs to humans.

Classification

Traditional classification of chlamydiae was based on host species and disease manifestations (respiratory, abortive, and other varieties). Until now, this approach is partially preserved, but one cannot help but admit that with the improvement of the equipment of veterinary clinics and the emergence of the possibility of carrying out better diagnostic techniques, it is increasingly becoming clear that all types of chlamydia can cause very “controversial” cases of the disease.

Simply put, even the typically feline C. Felis, which “historically” contributed to the development of only conjunctivitis, in practice may well cause inflammation of the joints. In addition, the very idea of classification by host (felis, suis, psittaci, etc.) already raises many doubts.

Drugs against chlamydia

Commonly used medications include:

Fluoroquinolones - Ciprofloxacin, Cifran, Ciprovet or Klacid. Tetracycline drugs - Doxycyline, Metacycline, Clarithromycin, Roxithromycin and Azithromycin. Treatment should last for 28 days.
Vitamin preparations, for example, Gamavit.
To support the liver - Essentiale Forte.
Antihistamines - Claritin, Tavegil and the like.
To normalize the gastrointestinal tract - Lactobifid, Linex, etc.
Preparations for the local treatment of conjunctivitis, blepharitis and keratitis - ointments with tetracycline, erythromycin, ditetramycin.
Means for the treatment of the genital form - Hilak-Forte or boric acid solution (rinse the vagina or preputial sac).

Chlamydia must be treated promptly, as this disease leads to severe complications.

Due to the variety of symptoms and the long treatment period, you should not delay a visit to the veterinarian. Chlamydia can cause the death of your pet.

Fluoroquinolones - Ciprofloxacin, Cifran, Ciprovet or Klacid. Tetracycline drugs - Doxycyline, Metacycline, Clarithromycin, Roxithromycin and Azithromycin. Treatment should last for 28 days.
Vitamin preparations, for example, Gamavit.
To support the liver - Essentiale Forte.
Antihistamines - Claritin, Tavegil and the like.
To normalize the gastrointestinal tract - Lactobifid, Linex, etc.
Preparations for the local treatment of conjunctivitis, blepharitis and keratitis - ointments with tetracycline, erythromycin, ditetramycin.
Means for the treatment of the genital form - Hilak-Forte or boric acid solution (rinse the vagina or preputial sac).
Chlamydia must be treated promptly, as this disease leads to severe complications.

Signs and symptoms of chlamydia

Signs largely depend on the specific type of pathogen. In general, the picture is sad in the sense that there are simply no particularly specific symptoms of pathologies of chlamydial origin. The problem is that the pathogen, as we have already said, is intracellular.

Symptoms depend solely on which organs and tissues were affected in a particular case. Considering that the most common is aerosol transmission of infection (with coughing and sneezing), the respiratory system and eyes are affected in approximately 70% of cases.

As a rule, the disease is accompanied by conjunctivitis (in general, chlamydia of the eye is a very common phenomenon, regardless of the serotype of the pathogen), inflammation of the connective tissue membranes, occasionally cases of myocarditis and pericarditis are possible, hepato-or splenomegaly, anemia, leukocytosis or monocytosis are also noted. Dogs infected with C. psittaci (and in the case of transmission from birds) often suffer from bronchopneumonia, which is characterized by intermittent fever. Also typical for the “bird” are keratoconjunctivitis, vomiting and diarrhea, and neurological seizures are possible.

When dogs are infected with C. felis, rhinitis, conjunctivitis and/or bronchopneumonia develop, but seropositive animals very often remain completely healthy in appearance, with no external manifestations in more than 65% of cases. Infection with the “feline” variety is much more severe in puppies. In this case, they are characterized by intermittent fever, apathy, shortness of breath, and later catarrhal-purulent rhinitis develops.

Unfortunately, C. abortus, suis and trachomatis, also detected in dogs, rarely give any clear clinical picture. Infection with them, rather, resembles the picture of associated and mixed infections of bacterial and viral origin.

In the acute form of the disease, clinical symptoms of chlamydia in dogs include fever and depression. Sometimes the upper and lower respiratory tract are affected, which can result in pneumonia.

The latter manifests itself quite characteristically (nasal discharge, dry frequent dry cough and shortness of breath). There is also information that “cow” and “pork” varieties of chlamydia in dogs can provoke abortions, endometritis and stillbirth.

In very rare cases, enteritis and diarrhea, polyarthritis, keratoconjunctivitis, encephalomyelitis, pericarditis and hepatitis of chlamydial origin have been described. This trend is more typical for dogs living in rural areas, as well as animals used for herding.

Interestingly, in most cases, newborn puppies (born with a sick mother) are completely healthy, but by the age of two weeks they become ill with a 100% probability. So the question of the ability of chlamydia to overcome the placental barrier still remains open.

When dogs come into contact with sick horses, infection is also possible, even if this happens extremely rarely. In such cases, the development of bronchopneumonia, polyarthritis (in puppies), hepatitis and hopeless encephalomyelitis is possible.
But many researchers today believe that this can only happen if the sick horses were infected with a “universal” species, that is, C. psittaci or C. Abortus, since under normal conditions “equine” strains are usually not transmitted to dogs.

Prevention of chlamydia in dogs

In order to prevent the development of chlamydial infections, breeders and dog owners should closely monitor the condition of their pet. Particular attention should be paid to the diet, living conditions, maintaining and increasing the immunity of animals with vitamin and mineral supplements. You should not allow uncontrolled mating or contact with stray animals while walking.

To reduce the risk of a dog becoming infected with chlamydia, it is equally important to carry out timely preventive vaccination, adhering to the schedule, deworming, and timely treat the dog for ecto and endoparasites. Mono-vaccines of domestic and foreign production have been developed against chlamydia (Chlamykon). Maintain your dog's hygiene.

When keeping dogs in groups in enclosures and kennels, it is important not only to create favorable living conditions, to monitor the cleanliness of dog houses, but also to disinfect bowls, ammunition, and bedding every few months.

Before a planned mating, it would not be amiss to inspect the dogs, take swabs for the presence of chlamydia from the vagina of a female dog, and the preputial sac of a male dog.
Having noticed the first signs and symptoms of chlamydia in your dog, if the general condition worsens, contact a veterinary hospital and take your beloved dog to the clinic for examination. Remember, every day of delay could cost your dog's life!

Diagnosis

Neither clinical signs nor lesions of specific organs make it possible to make a truly accurate diagnosis, so diagnosing chlamydia in dogs is very difficult, and in many cases even difficult to implement. The problem is that chlamydia is suspected very rarely (if at all), plus even today veterinary medicine uses very few diagnostic techniques specifically designed to detect chlamydia.

Let us emphasize once again that this problem has been trivially underestimated for many years, and the World Veterinary Association is only now beginning to realize its true problems. Today, the most reliable method is considered to be growing the pathogen in cell cultures , but this method is very expensive and time-consuming. In particular, a month may pass from the moment of taking samples of pathological material to the time of “germination” of chlamydia, which is clearly undesirable.

So in most cases, the diagnostician has to rely on his experience and acute vision: this is the only way to detect the pathogen in smears of pathological material. It is necessary to take samples of washings and exudate from the nasal cavity, conjunctiva, rectum, vagina or preputial sac.

It is useful to study scrapings and washings from the wall of the trachea. The PCR reaction is much more accurate , but even it is far from ideal. Firstly, the technique, whatever one may say, is not cheap. Secondly, with PCR there are frequent cases of false positive tests. In addition, the animal could have already suffered from chlamydia in a latent form, which is why a residual concentration of antigens may be observed in its body. The reaction will give a positive result, while bronchopneumonia, for example, was actually caused not by chlamydia, but by pneumococci.

Serological reactions generally do not play a special role in diagnosis (for the same reason - even in the blood of a healthy animal specific antibodies can remain). Therefore, serology is the prerogative of scientists studying the distribution area of chlamydia in the wild. So let us emphasize once again that the most objective methods for detecting this disease in dogs remain cell cultures and PCR reactions, even despite their shortcomings.

Routes of infection

This disease occurs not only in rural, but also in urban individuals. There are many transfer options. Rodents, wild pigeons, and sparrows play a major role in the spread. Their stomachs carry parasites that quickly multiply in the dog’s body if it tastes the meat of a dead bird or simply sniffs it.

Country dogs get sick more often, because not only wild animals carry chlamydia. They are found in the bodies of deceased individuals of large and small ruminants (cows, goats, sheep, horses), in the afterbirth of animals that gave birth and in the bodies of aborted individuals.

So, the infection occurs:

by airborne droplets;
during sexual intercourse;
in close contact;
in utero.

Prevention

Specific prevention of chlamydia exists, that is, there is a normally working vaccine. Unfortunately, due to the wide variety of serotypes and their overall variability, vaccination is not 100% guaranteed to protect your pet from infection. However, it still shouldn’t be neglected. In particular, the advantage of vaccination is an almost 100% guarantee against the development of infertility and miscarriages in dogs.

First, there is a lot of evidence about the low effectiveness of vaccines (remember the wide variability of serotypes). Secondly, not only breeders, but also some veterinarians suggest that sometimes vaccines themselves can cause abortions. In fairness, however, it is worth noting that vaccines (with rare exceptions) are not recommended for pregnant animals, so this claim is not entirely correct.

If there are frequent cases of chlamydia in your region (or at least if you suspect their presence), try to ensure that your dog meets other animals less often. Breeders can be advised to choose pairs for their pets only from the most trusted and reliable colleagues, who do not neglect quarterly health checks of animals at the veterinarian. In rural areas, dogs should be completely prevented from entering premises where birds, pigs, etc. are kept, since, as we already know, they can be reservoirs of chlamydia. By the way, it doesn’t hurt to call a veterinarian to check farm animals. In disadvantaged regions this will definitely not be superfluous.

Diagnostics

The diagnosis is made based on the collected medical history, severe symptoms, and a survey of the pet owner. To accurately establish the clinical picture, a serological test is carried out in the laboratory. Despite the presence of obvious signs, it is impossible to accurately diagnose at home.

Mainly, enzyme immunoassays and polymerase chain reactions are used to make a diagnosis. The laboratory performs analyzes of scrapings and smears taken from mucous membranes.

Treatment

How is chlamydia treated in dogs? There is only one solution - prescribing loading doses of powerful antibiotics. Tetracyclines, quinolones, macrolides (lincosamides, rifamycins) are suitable. The only caveat is that these drugs must be administered before taking samples of pathological material, since otherwise the diagnosis will be biased. The most preferred (due to its high efficiency) is doxycillin. It allows you to cope with the main manifestations of the infection within about five days. But the treatment regimen for chlamydia usually involves combination therapy, since prescribing only one drug, even a very effective one, can be fraught with a relapse of the disease.

Therefore, practicing veterinarians prefer to do the following:

First, the same doxycillin . Dose – at least 10-15 mg per kilogram of live weight. Frequency of use – no more than once a day. The maximum duration of the drug is 10 days, but blood tests must be taken regularly. If they show an increased number of liver enzymes, it’s time to stop using this antibiotic. It has a very pronounced negative effect on the pet’s liver and kidneys.
At the same time, maintenance treatment is carried out. For example, if a dog’s respiratory system is damaged and he cannot breathe normally without wild shortness of breath, he is prescribed drugs that support respiratory and cardiac activity (caffeine-sodium benzoate, for example). Liver problems? Hepatoprotectors will help (at least the widely advertised Essentiale-Forte).

You should not practice self-treatment at home. Many antimicrobial agents used to eliminate chlamydia are quite dangerous not only for chlamydia, but also for the body of the dog itself. In addition, if the treatment is not carried out correctly, the pathogen may not be completely destroyed. This is fraught with the disease becoming chronic. The parasites themselves will become much more resistant to antibiotics, which will lead to big problems in the future.

Considering that chlamydia is an intracellular parasite, it would not hurt to somehow strengthen the protective systems of these same cells in order to complicate the process of chlamydia penetration inside. Oddly enough, ordinary human interferon , which can be bought at any pharmacy. It is given at a dose of 15,000 IU per day. The duration of submission is five days. After two weeks, the course should be repeated.

It should also be taken into account that using widely used antibiotics from the penicillin group to destroy chlamydia is a waste of time and money. Parasites are extremely resistant to drugs of this type, even if they somewhat slow down their development. However, drugs from the group of cephalosporins are still worth prescribing and using, but only in cases where chlamydia has led to the simultaneous development of bronchopneumonia of combined etiology. Doxycillin may not be able to cope with such a pathology in the shortest possible time, and administering it to a pet for a long time is dangerous. Penicillins are a different matter, since they do not have such a high degree of toxicity.

Preventive actions

To avoid infecting your pet with chlamydia, you should pay attention to the dog’s diet, its living conditions, and also constantly improve its immunity with the help of vitamin and mineral nutritional supplements. It is important to keep the bowl and bedding on which the animal sleeps clean.

There is no vaccine that protects dogs from chlamydia. It is recommended that pets, regardless of gender, be examined for diseases before mating.

Chlamydia in dogs is transmitted to humans in rare cases through close contact. The asymptomatic form, in which there are no signs, is especially dangerous; you can become infected with chlamydia from a dog if it is psittaci. Infection of chlamydia abortus in humans from animals is extremely rare.

Prevention

Considering that chlamydial infection is transmitted to humans, when caring for a sick pet, at least basic personal hygiene measures should be observed. Wash your hands more often, do not kiss the animal under any circumstances (this will not lead to anything good at all), wash the floors in the room where the sick dog is kept daily with water mixed with chlorine bleach. Fortunately, chlamydia in the external environment is not very stable, and therefore they are easily destroyed even by the simplest disinfectants in low concentrations.

Etiology, pathogenesis of chlamydia

Chlamydia occupies an intermediate position between viruses and bacteria. Microorganisms are resistant to various adverse factors, some disinfectants, and external factors. However, chlamydia, which provokes an infectious disease in dogs, is sensitive to sudden changes in environmental pH and high temperatures. So, temperatures exceeding 40-45 degrees are destructive for them. At 18-25 degrees, chlamydia is viable for up to ten days, from 33 to 38 - no more than seven days. In cold water, snow - up to 16-18 days, in pasteurized milk - 25 days.

The main feature of dangerous parasites is that they are able to transform into forms that are insensitive and resistant to antibacterial drugs. Considering that chlamydia is an intracellular parasite, the disease requires complex, long-term treatment.

In the spread of a dangerous disease, the main role is played by stray and stray animals, birds, rodents, cats, which are carriers of pathogenic microorganisms that provoke chlamydial infections. Chlamydia can enter the external environment with aborted fetuses, discharge from the birth canal, and feces.

Chlamydia infection in dogs occurs:

By nutritional means, when eating raw meat, offal, feed, infected with chlamydia colonies.
Sexually (genitally) as a result of uncontrolled mating.
By aerogenous, airborne droplets when inhaling air, sniffing infected birds, rodents, aborted fetuses of infected livestock.
Contact, when healthy people come into close contact with infected individuals, latent virus carriers.

Infection of dogs with chlamydial infection is also possible through transmissible transmission - through the bites of blood-sucking insects, especially ticks.

The risk group includes dogs living in rural areas, animals kept in unfavorable conditions in enclosures, kennels in group housing, weakened, emaciated dogs. Dogs with weakened immune systems are most susceptible to infection.

What is chlamydia

This is a very common and extremely dangerous infectious disease, which is caused by inherent intracellular parasitic bacteria. They affect the gastrointestinal tract and disrupt the functioning of the respiratory system, can lead to abortion, and the born offspring will most likely be non-viable.

The respiratory organs, nervous system and liver are affected, and characteristic myocarditis may develop. There are cases of disease of the small intestine. But most often chlamydia affects the genitourinary system of animals.

All breeds of dogs are susceptible to the disease. Chlamydia is life-threatening for pets, especially puppies, as well as malnourished individuals and older dogs.

To protect your pet, familiarize yourself with the symptoms and treatment of dog diseases such as otitis media, epilepsy, eclampsia, pancreatitis, staphylococcus, dysplasia, demodicosis, coronavirus, mycoplasmosis, enteritis, coronavirus, toxoplasmosis, cryptorchidism, piroplasmosis, bursitis, dirofilariasis, lichen and distemper .