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Appalbarry writes:

The always excellent Worms and Germs blog, out of the University of Guelph, has a series of articles about the recent arrival of Asian H3N2 canine flu into North America.

As described:

In a bit of a surprising twist, research performed by Cornell University, the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and the National Veterinary Services Laboratory has indicated that the large, ongoing canine flu outbreak in the Midwest US is being caused by an H3N2 influenza strain, not the expected H3N8 canine flu strain. Molecularly, the strain is closely related to H3N2 strains that are circulating in dogs in China and South Korea. H3N2 canine flu emerged in that region in the mid 2000s and is widely circulating in some areas.

It would appear that one culprit in the spread of this disease are the number of international "Rescue Societies." These groups travel to foreign countries, collect stray dogs, and bring them back to North America where they are adopted out to well-meaning families. Asia and South America are the preferred sources, although there are groups that rescue dogs in the US and haul them up to Canada.

The ultimate problem seems to be that aside from rabies there is not a lot of thought given by border agencies to managing imported pets. In fact, an awful lot of dogs are imported each year that don't even have the required rabies shots.

If over 2700 unvaccinated dogs were brought into the country, how many dogs were brought in in total? How many of the "vaccinated" dogs were really vaccinated? (Since scrutiny is limited and faking a vaccine certificate doesn’t exactly take a lot of effort.) What other pathogens might those thousands of imported dogs been carrying? Finally, why import those dogs in the first place? There’s hardly a shortage of dogs looking for homes in the US...

Here is a statement from the CDC [fixed] on the outbreak in the Chicago area.