It’s been known since the beginning of the pandemic that cats and dogs can catch COVID-19 from infected people, as have gorillas, mink and one ferret. But what remains unclear is how susceptible your pets are to the disease, and what factors, if any, raise their risks of infection.
Now, two studies to be presented in an online medical conference next week reveal dogs and cats are catching the illness from their owners more often than thought, with felines facing greater risks than canines.
Despite lingering unknowns, the studies found no evidence of pet to human coronavirus transmission, easing some discomfort about the potential for more animal spillovers. (Most scientists believe the virus hopped from bats to humans.)
“If you have COVID-19, you should avoid contact with your cat or dog, just as you would do with other people,” Dr. Els Broens, co-author of one of the studies and director of the Veterinary Microbiological Diagnostic Center at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said in a statement. “The main concern, however, is not the animals’ health — they had no or mild symptoms of COVID-19 — but the potential risk that pets could act as a reservoir of the virus and reintroduce it into the human population.”
“Fortunately, to date no pet-to-human transmission has been reported,” Broens added. “So, despite the rather high prevalence among pets from COVID-19 positive households in this study, it seems unlikely that pets play a role in the pandemic.”
The study from the Netherlands team found that among 310 pets with nearly equal parts cat and dog from 196 coronavirus-positive homes, 13 pets (six cats and seven dogs) tested positive for COVID-19. Meanwhile, 54 pets (31 cats and 23 dogs) had coronavirus antibodies — a sign of past infection.
All of the infected animals eventually tested negative, the researchers said.
The team also revisited the homes of pets that tested positive to check if infected animals were passing the virus to other pets in the household; none tested positive, suggesting pet-to-pet transmission is unlikely.
Cats more likely to get catch COVID than dogs
A separate study done by researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada looked at how interactions between infected owners and pets influenced dogs’ or cats’ chances of getting sick.
Among 48 cats and 54 dogs, 67% and 43% tested positive for antibodies, respectively.
The team compared the pets to 75 dogs and cats living in an animal shelter and 75 stray cats seen at a veterinary clinic, 9% and 3% of which had antibodies, respectively. This suggests pets are more likely to get sick from humans and not other animals.
“While the evidence that pets can pass the virus on to other pets is limited, it can’t be excluded,” study co-author Dorothee Bienzle, a professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Guelph, said in a statement. “Similarly, although pets have not been shown to pass the virus back to people, the possibility can’t be completely ruled out.”
Pet cats were more likely to show symptoms (27%), such as runny nose and difficulty breathing, compared to pet dogs (20%) that primarily showed low energy and loss of appetite. Nearly all cases were mild, aside from three severe infections in cats.
For dogs, the amount of time spent with infected owners or the type of contact they had didn’t affect their odds of infection, but it did for cats — especially if they shared a bed with their sick owners.
Researchers speculate cats have unique proteins that may make it easier for the coronavirus to enter their cells, making infection more likely. Cats also tend to sleep closer to people’s faces than dogs.