It's clearly a seasonal thing. The autumn weather activates Providencia Alcalifaciens somehow, but how isn't known yet. It's apparently a part of the normal gut flora, but the levels are very elevated in the dead dogs.
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This article is really interesting (paywall):
https://www.aftenposten.no/norge/i/MRWR00/Har-ventet-i-13-ar...
Paywall free article (translated to English): https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&u=https%3...
The bacterium have apparently killed dogs before in South-Africa.
In the US we have an average of 7 cases of EEE (Mosquito born illness) in humans per year, but if you get it it’s often fatal. This year there was an “outbreak” in MA of 7 cases. There are 36 communities which are claimed to be at “critical” risk.
The problem with this nonsense is that they close the town fields and they don’t let the kids outside before school starts or even for recess. This apparently will continue until the first hard frost hits.
It’s tragic that a few people have died. I think it’s insane to respond by effectively canceling fall outdoor sports.
Humans are just really bad at evaluating risks of extremely low probability events.
Some examples... There isn't really a blame culture here. People can fuck up massively and face no serious consequences. There isn't really the same aversion to risk. Sick people are told by their doctors to get some exercise and lose weight before the doctors reach for drugs. It would seem alien to an American in many ways.
As a Texan with family in Norway, I’ve often admired Norwegian culture... Everything is just so koselig, you know?
Also. I certainly don't believe in the food theory. As a population, dogs are fed a variety of food. While individuals are often on a limited diet. Which suggest to me that it would be figured out quickly if it was a factor.
On the other hand there may be a newly-significant way of transmission.
One way to increase a bacteria is killing all the competition and waiting to the survivors filling the new space available
extra bad seasonal outbreak
The common dog cold? Dog flu?
What kind of seasonal outbreak affects dogs?
The bacteria's species does not have a wikipedia page yet, but here is the genus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providencia_(bacterium)
Meanwhile, a Google search for "Seasonal Canine Illness" produced mixed results, none of which says much about digestive problems, upset stomach or incontinence within the veterinary context.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridium_perfringens
It's mentioned that some dogs showed a presence of both microbes. Maybe it's a harmful interaction between two different bacterial loads, that evolves into a toxic conflict, as each organism tries to kill off the rival population and colonize the environment for themselves?
That the toxin is canine specific is interesting. The contagion incubates for maybe three days before the dog is incapacitated by digestive problems, so you get the sense that after crossing the fecal/oral disease vector (spoiled food, sniffing and licking biofilm surfaces, tracking in vomit/feces contaminated soil after walking dog paths mutually shared by infected animals or carriers) the foreign bacteria might react to quorum sensing once it's gained a foothold in the hospitable gut environment that meets it's needs as a microbe.
Some signal in the canine metabolism sends it into overdrive and it blows up causing tissue damage, and then the animal's body tries to evict everything by retching and dumping out both ends.
Unfortunately, not all the pathogens found in any or many of the cases will be causative. Some pathogens or newer strains thereof may be harder to detect.
To make matters worse, some of the dogs with the same symptoms won't even have the same disease.
I guess it’s come full circle. At one point in time of early social media “virality” took on a positive aspect. I suspect it’s going to tend down, given how sensationalism is becoming a norm in news —at any cost, unfortunately.
Reality is a consensus.