Dog of Ebola-infected Texas nurse tests negative for virus

The 1-year-old King Charles Spaniel belonging to a Dallas nurse infected with Ebola has tested free of the virus and will remain in isolation for the remainder of his 21-day monitoring period, the city of Dallas said on Wednesday.

"Bentley is doing great! Turns out he likes butt rubs," Dallas spokeswoman Sana Syed wrote in a recent Tweet about the dog belonging to nurse Nina Pham, who is in good condition at a National Institutes of Health hospital in Maryland.

The pet, evacuated from Pham's apartment, has been under the spotlight after officials in Madrid put down the dog of a Spanish nurse who contracted Ebola while caring for a patient.

If Bentley remains Ebola-free, he is likely to be released from Dallas Animal Services, where he is in a special isolation unit under the care of workers wearing protective suits, around the start of November.

The city has been sending pictures of the dog regularly to Pham, who is the first person to contract Ebola in the United States.

She got the virus while treating an Ebola-infected man who had just arrived in Texas from Liberia.

(Reporting by Lisa Maria Garza; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Jim Loney)