Ask Karen: Could my pet have MRSA?

Karen McNew
WSLS 10 News Anchor
Published: July 2, 2008

QUESTION: You had a story a while back about pets getting MRSA. Are the warning signs for pets the same as people, and is it common?

ANSWER: MRSA is a condition we have heard a lot about in people lately but not as much in pets.

Dr. Mark Finkler with Roanoke Animal Hospital said he has only seen one case of MRSA in a pet.

“We don’t culture as often as they do on the human side … there are probably more cases than we know about.”

But, he added, in the “big picture” of your pet’s health, MRSA is not a major concern.

An indicator that a pet might have MRSA is a wound that takes a long time to heal even with antibiotics. But only a culture of the wound can diagnose MRSA. Dr. Finkler says a culture is a swab of the infected area. A lab then can test the culture to figure out what it is and which antibiotic would work best against it.
Ultimately, the top health issues in pets are obesity and periodontal disease.

Dr. Finkler says, “People don’t open their dog’s mouth; they assume bad breath is part of having a dog or a cat, and it’s not.”

I found out the hard way about periodontal disease with my dog. He had to have several teeth pulled, and the infection had slowed him down. Now, I brush his teeth with chicken-flavored toothpaste to try to prevent future problems.