Animal shelter outbreak passes

The Shawano County Humane Society is returning to normal after an illness outbreak affected many dogs and forced the facility to close its doors temporarily.

Officials said the humane society’s animal shelter suffered an outbreak of “kennel cough,” a contagious respiratory illness that spread among the facility’s canine population.

No animals were euthanized, officials said, and the shelter reopened to the public Friday after getting the kennel cough under control.

“We wanted to be on the safe side,” said Phil Zuhse, a member of the humane society’s board of directors.

The humane society, 1290 Jaycee Court, is a nonprofit organizations that maintains indoor and outdoor facilities to accommodate more than 100 cats and about 45 dogs.

Shelter Director Robin Hogan said Friday that operations were back to normal, but she referred other questions to the organization’s board of directors.

According to the humane society’s Facebook postings, the shelter announced Aug. 15 that it was “closed until further notice” because of a kennel cough outbreak. The facility stopped accepting new animals and prohibited the public from visiting the shelter.

That was later relaxed to allow public viewing of cats available for adoption. Kennel cough is contagious among dogs, but it does not affect cats.

Marvin Popp, president of the group’s board of directors, said the shelter was closed temporarily to control the illness from spreading to other dogs through visitors or otherwise.

Popp said he has seen similar illness outbreaks disrupt the facility over the years.

Staff members treated the infected dogs, cleared up the outbreak and gave the shelter an extra-thorough cleaning, Popp said.

“It’s quite a lot more work,” he said. “I’m sure they did a good job.”