IS RAW FOOD THE CAUSE OF ‘ALABAMA ROT’?

Probably not.

A report in the Telegraph has an expert stating that feeding raw meat to dogs could be the cause of the UK outbreak of the cutaneous and renal glomerular vasculopathy syndrome dubbed ‘Alabama Rot’. It is true that the original 1980’s Alabama Rot (AR) had the same symptoms and was linked to poor hygiene around raw meat but the outbreak differed from the UK one in several respects. The original AR outbreaks were confined to racing greyhounds; UK cases have been seen in all ages and breeds of dogs. The original AR cases were fed raw meat in kennels; some of the UK cases have never been fed raw meat. E. coli was isolated from dogs suffering from the original AR outbreak; despite looking E. coli has not been found in the UK cases. In addition the UK cases seem geographically linked to woodland and have occurred in the winter-spring period for the last two years, seeming to no occur in the summer or autumn. This pattern rather rules out a raw meat diet as the source of the disease in our opinion.

SO WHAT IS  THE CAUSE OF UK ‘ALABAMA ROT’?

We still don’t know the cause despite extensive testing of affected dogs. Woodland seems key, and maybe damp conditions. The cause could be an E. coli strain which is hard to isolate but an environmental source (broken drains, flooded out animal dens, dead animals) seems more likely than the diet.

HOW TO AVOID UK ‘ALABAMA ROT’?

At the moment there is no sure fire way to avoid your dog becoming ill with this syndrome. Hopefully with warmer, drier weather the number of cases will decline, as happened in 2013. Check if there have been cases locally, or where you are holidaying and check your dog daily for the skin erosions on the legs and face which can be the early symptoms. If you see unusual skin lesions, especially if you have walked where cases have been reported, seek veterinary attention as soon as possible. Expect the vet to take blood samples and to repeat them in a week even if they are normal to begin with.

In one case a number of dogs belonging to the same owner died, but one survived. The surviving dog had been washed off after exercise. No-one knows if this made the difference or not, but hosing dogs off after woodland walks could be a sensible precaution.

If you raw feed we don’t think there is any reason to stop doing so at the moment, but we always recommend good food hygiene standards are observed. You shouldn’t feed your dog meat that you wouldn’t be happy to cook up and eat yourself (from a food safety point of view, we accept most people don’t want to eat tripe!). The same goes for prepared wet or dry diets; don’t feed mouldy, stale or off smelling foods.