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In Michigan, a fatal dog virus has struck and killed six canines. Experts believe that it might be spreading from the pet-owners to the pets.

In the first identified symptoms, a dog, named Brutus would try to bark and whine each time he attempted to do so. The owner of the 11 year old Brutus, Tecumseh, Michigan woman got worried when the pet lost its desire to eat and would barely try to move.

“I was trying not to lose it,” she was quoted as saying according to Guardian Express.

The veterinarians are unable to find exactly which kind of virus Brutus had. This is the very first time this type of illness had been seen around the metro area of Detroit.

"The illness is usually becoming the worst between 12 to 24 hours of when it starts,” stated a veterinarian which works at the Emergency Veterinary Hospital in Ann Arbor, MI. He also explained that Brutus and the other dogs has seen with the same unknown virus are displaying flu-like symptoms, reported Guardian Express.

A possible reason might be circovirus. Two cases of canine circovirus have been identified in Michigan as of Oct. 3, Thomas Mullaney, acting director of the Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health at Michigan State University, said in a statement.

“However, both animals also had simultaneous infections with other organisms; therefore identification of the circovirus was not necessarily linked to the cause of the disease shown by the animals,” the statement by Mullaney read. “The center will now do full diagnostic post-mortem work-ups of the animals to determine which illness actually killed these pets.”