Humane Society of Tampa Bay resuming some canine intakes after dog flu outbreak

TAMPA, Fla. - The Humane Society of Tampa Bay is set to resume the intake of some dog intakes on Saturday after an outbreak of dog flu led to a freeze in intakes.

Canine influenza - a highly contagious respiratory disease - led to the closure of intakes at the Humane Society of Tampa Bay and the Hillsborough County Pet Resource Center over two weeks ago.

READ: Bay Area animal shelters not accepting new dogs during dog flu outbreak

This marked the shelter's first dog flu outbreak since 2018. It led to the Pet Resource Center moving all 290 of its dogs out of the Falkenburg Road facility to an offsite location.

Now, 17 days after the outbreak, more than 90 percent of the dogs at the shelter have achieved immunity against influenza through vaccination or infection. There is still some coughing, but no fevers. 

The shelter still has to be selective about which dogs it accepts because of extremely limited kennel space, especially for bigger dogs. 

"This morning, we have 8 cages that are open. That's not that many cages," Humane Society of Tampa Bay CEO Sherry Silk said. "We aren't going to take in stray dogs if we don't have a place to put them because that would result in a euthanasia and we don't euthanize for space here."

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The shelter just launched a stray diversion program for diverting dogs away from shelter intake because of the crowding they're seeing.