Duke Health said Monday night it has detected the virus that causes COVID-19 in a family’s dog, possibly the first time, it said, the virus has been confirmed in a dog.

The finding, first reported by WRAL, occurred in a Chapel Hill household in which a family had enrolled in a study at Duke and most of them had tested positive for the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The family and their pets — except for a bearded dragon named Kimchi — were tested as part of the Molecular and Epidemiological Study of Suspected Infection (MESSI), said Dr. Heather McLean, the mom and a Duke pediatrician.

“To our knowledge, this is the first instance in which the virus has been detected in a dog,” Dr. Chris Woods, director of the Hubert-Yeargan Center for Global Health, said in a statement released by Duke Health.

“Little additional information is known at this time as we work to learn more about the exposure,” he said.

The family’s daughter, Sydney, a pug named Otis, and a cat named Mr. Nibs tested negative for the virus, McLean said.

But, she, her husband Sam, their son Ben and their 2-and-a-half-year-old pug, Winston, tested positive.

While his symptoms were mild, the family noticed Winston making a gagging sound and not eating breakfast one day, which was unusual for him, McLean said.

He wasn’t tested because they thought he was sick, she said, but to support Duke’s research. McLean and her husband, are both doctors and wanted their experience with the coronavirus to help others.

“If there are things that the research team can learn about the virus that is in us and how our bodies react to it — whether we develop antibodies, the pets — that would be really exciting to us if we could contribute to that body of knowledge,” McLean said. “We were more than happy to participate.”

And Winston didn’t take a test a human might have needed. The type of test that confirmed the virus in him was different from the test used on people, she said.

New York City tiger

The COVID-19 outbreak is thought to have originated in a live-animal market in China.

The first known case in the United States of an animal testing positive for the virus was a 4-year-old Malayan tiger with a respiratory illness who may have been infected by an employee with the virus at The Bronx Zoo in New York City.

Winston may be the first dog in the U.S. to test positive, but the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is aware of cases in dogs reported elsewhere in the world.

McLean also suspects there are others that haven’t been confirmed but said she doesn’t want to make people worry about their pets because of hers.

“He’s always with me, laying on my lap, and he’s very affectionate,” she said. “We knew if any of the pets tested positive, it would be him.”

Cats and dogs

The American Kennel Club reports on its website that two pet dogs in Hong Kong tested positive and were likely cases of “human-to-animal transmission.” Neither dog appeared to be sick from the virus, it said.

And Tuesday, the Wake County Animal Center, the county’s open-admission animal shelter in Raleigh, issued a news release noting that the CDC last week announced the first confirmed cases of two pet cats, both in New York, testing positive for the virus.

“One of the cats’ owners tested positive for COVID-19, and the other is suspected to have come into contact with a mildly ill or asymptomatic person,” the release states. “Each cat had mild respiratory illness and was expected to make a full recovery.”

The News & Observer contacted Duke Health on Tuesday to ask follow-up questions about Monday’s night’s statement but was told Woods was likely unavailable until late in the afternoon or evening.

In general, the CDC says the types of coronaviruses that infect animals rarely spread to people and the risk of getting COVID-19 from an animal is considered to be low.

Still, the CDC recommends people treat their pets like family members.

“Do not let pets interact with people or animals outside the household,” it states. “If a person inside the household becomes sick, isolate that person from everyone else, including pets.”

And Winston?

As of Tuesday, he and his family were doing fine, McLean said.

This story was originally published April 27, 2020 at 11:06 PM.