Distemper is a contagious, incurable and often fatal disease that affects the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and central nervous system in dogs.

Vaccinations have drastically reduced the number of victims, but haven't gotten rid of the disease for good.

Alachua County Animal Shelter workers say they do vaccinate the animals for distemper, but they cannot test them for one reason.

"Funding," says Ray Sim, Director of the Alachua County Animal Shelter. "Its very expensive we would not and do not have the funds to test every animal that comes into our facility and to then continue the treatment associated with that."

The Alachua County Animal Shelter currently has about 166 animals in their facility, but they only have 105 kennels. They said they would love to be able to isolate some who may have the disease but they would have to put about 20 to sleep per day in order to do this and that is something they are not willing to do.

By Nathalie Pozo, WCJB TV20 News