In all fairness, the dog is a major asset. It needs to be used to determine first of all, if it has the virus. Second, is it showing effects of the virus, or is it a passive carrier. Third, through ordinary contact, can it infect other animals or people.
That is, alive, that dog is worth its weight in gold, as far as answering some *vital* questions about canine animal vectors. (Especially because in Africa, dogs may eat dead human bodies.)
They need other exposed animals as well: cats, goats, sheep, cows, horses, pigs, chickens and other birds, and even fish.
On the CDC website: Ebola Virus Antibody Prevalence in Dogs and Human Risk (2005). From the paper:
During the 2001–2002 outbreak in Gabon, we observed that several dogs were highly exposed to Ebola virus by eating infected dead animals. To examine whether these animals became infected with Ebola virus, we sam-pled 439 dogs and screened them by Ebola virus–specific immunoglobulin (Ig) G assay, antigen detection, and viral polymerase chain reaction amplification. Seven (8.9%) of 79 samples from the 2 main towns, 15 (15.2%) of 99 samples from Mekambo, and 40 (25.2%) of 159 samples from villages in the Ebola virus–epidemic area had detectable Ebola virus–IgG, compared to only 2 (2%) of 102 samples from France.
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We observed that some dogs ate fresh remains of Ebola virus–infected dead animals brought back to the villages, and that others licked vomit from Ebola virus–infected patients.
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Together, these findings strongly suggest that dogs can be infected by Ebola virus, and that some pet dogs living in affected villages were infected during the 2001–2002 human Ebola virus out- break. No circulating Ebola antigens or viral DNA sequences (tested by PCR) were detected in either positive or negative serum specimens, and attempts to isolate virus from these samples failed. These findings indicate either old, transient Ebola infection of the tested dogs, or anti-genic stimulation.Symptoms did not develop in any of these highly exposed animals during the outbreak, a finding that tends to support antigenic stimulation, asymptomatic, or very mild Ebola virus infection. Wild animals, especially gorillas and chimpanzees, can also be infected by Ebola virus, but the infection is highly lethal and causes huge outbreaks and massive population declines (5,14). Other animals such as guinea pigs (15), goats (16), and horses (17) remain asymptomatic or develop mild symptoms after experimental infection, but Ebola virus infection has never been observed in these species in the wild. Thus, dogs appear to be the first animal species shown to be naturally and asymptomatically infected by Ebola virus. Asymptomatic Ebola infection in humans has also been observed during outbreaks (18) but is very rare. Although dogs can be asymptomatically infected, they may excrete infectious viral particles in urine, feces, and saliva for a short period before virus clearance, as observed experimentally in other animals.
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Asymptomatically infected dogs could be a potential source of human Ebola outbreaks and of virus spread during human outbreaks, which could explain some epidemiologically unrelated human cases.
So, the takeaway is, dogs can be infected, but don't get sick (at least not very). And, after being infected, they can pass the disease to humans, at least until "virus clearance". It would be interesting to know how long until virus clearance in dogs.