• Influenza virus can infect cats following experimental inoculation, and there is some serological evidence of infection in the field. However, there is no evidence that cat to human transmission might occur, the reverse being more likely during human influenza pandemics. Influenza virus has also been isolated-from dogs and may cause mild upper respiratory tract disease. The source of infection is probably also humans.
• Paramyxovirus infection of the CNS has been described in cats associated with demyelinating encephalitis and with clinical neurological signs. Antibody to mumps has been reported in dogs, but this may simply be due to serological cross-reaction with canine parainfluenza virus. Canine distemper virus (CDV) can also infect domestic cats both experimentally and in the field but generally causes no clinical signs. In big cats, however, natural CDV infection has been associated with encephalitis.
• Arthropod-borne virus (particularly alpha- and flavivirus) infection of both cats and dogs has been reported from various parts of the world. Infection is usually asymptomatic but occasionally causes encephalitis, for example louping ill in dogs which is transmitted by ixodid ticks.
• A herpesvirus closely related to feline herpesvirus 1 has been isolated from a dog with diarrhoea, but the significance of this virus in terms of prevalence and pathogenicity is not known.
• Various human enteroviruses have been isolated from dogs without being associated with disease, and again humans are thought to be the source of infection.
• Lymphochoriomeningitis virus is a virus found in mice and is only rarely transmitted to man. However, there are some old reports showing that dogs can be experimentally infected with LCMV. Furthermore these dogs were able to infect other dogs sharing their kennels. So dogs can be infected and shed infectious virus. Whether this has any epidemiological or zoonotic significance in the field is not known.

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