When parvo comes calling...

[S.R.Patch]

http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/digesti ... virus.html

Can anyone say they've had good luck with parvo?
It's been over 20 yrs since I was cursed with the virus, just lucky I guess. Well, I raised my first litter this year and all went exceptionally well. They're 7 months old now and running rabbits like champs. Then comes the second and third litters. All seemingly going perfect as the prior, then one day a little male doesn't come out to eat. I get him out of the box and can tell he's dehydrated and not feeling well, so take him to the vet on the way to work. Test positive for parvo, so get the meds for diarrhea & vomiting and antibiotics. When get home with him, his brother and two sisters are dead. I thought, "oh-well, here we go, get the shovel for the rest". Two of the six in the litter never seemed to get sick hardly at all, one dose of meds and they were back to their old selves the next day and have been normal ever since. The little male I treated for 4 days before he seemed to recover and start eating again. Now, the three remaining are back to their old selves and playing again. This recovery was amazing to me, except! One week after the second litter came down with the parvo, the third litter went to feeling bad with two showing signs of depression and not eating. They had been vac. a week earlier, so I had to wait and see how bad this was going to be. Well the two that first showed being sickly were back to normal after a couple of days, then a third got to showing sickness, he's on his third day of treatment and holding his own, still drinking but not eating much. Again, three of the 6 in this litter never showed any signs of the virus after only having 1 vaccination.
So all in all, I lost 3 out of 12 puppies to parvo and never had a threatening case last longer then 3 days before they were back to eating, This was absolutely amazing to me! The three that died were so quick I didn't have time to fight it. The rest that survived recovered so quick that I didn't have the long drawn out fight and mess that I'd remembered from yrs ago.
That's why I'm here to tell ya, I had good luck with parvo, thank ya Lord!

ps...The meds I gave were, Cerenia tablets for vomiting and diarrhea and a antibiotic labeled SMZ TMP. Whether it was the puppies own immune system and the treatment from these meds,, I can hardly believe this came and went so fast.
To tell the truth, the vet seemed not to hold much hope for me as they shuffled, mopped and disinfected me out the door. I asked about leaving the pup for IV fluids and he said it would be about $700 to keep the pup with no grantees. He just forgot about a higher power ole patch had on his side at home...

[dave404]

I had parvo in the winter about 8 yr ago. lost the only male of the litter of 6. contacted Wolf creek ranch and they emailed me a recipe for Parvaid tea. It made a believer out of me !
went to walmart and got the ingredients , mostly all in the herb department. 5 females were just about gone. after all night giving the tea, next day they were eating. raised all 5 and if id had the tea probably could of saved the male.
google parvaid , and parvaid emergency tea.

[dogwhisperer]

had some friends that had parvo in the last month gave them some tami flu along with other meds and pedialite and they saved all but one. i credited it to the tamiflu been doing some research on it and seems it is a miracle cure for parvo. although it seems the strain of parvo is not as strong as i remember when i was a kid. all pups had had atleast one set of shots some had 2 rounds before they got it.

[S.R.Patch]

BB Beagler,
Can get pm's but can seem to reply, so I'll answer here.
The pup I took in tested positive parvo, I have heard of false negatives but never false positive. When I went home in the morning 3 others were dead after appearing perfectly healthy and playing when I left. That made me a believer it was parvo. Other than the two, the rest have recovered remarkably well.
I don't think they recommend giving corona in a shot to pups this young?

[Slaux]

Good thread Patch. Thanks for sharing your bad experience for the rest of us to glean experience from. I had parvo once, knock on wood, in over thirty five years. I waited to vaccinate, as it was an accidental breeding and I was lax. At 8 weeks, with never being vaccinated I had one pup come down with parvo with the same symptoms you described. I was given the same prognosis, pricey with no guarantee. I opted to put him down, this was almost twenty years ago. I vaccinated the rest of the litter immediately and bleached everything out real good. None of the other pups ever came down with it and I've never had it again. After that I was paranoid and "over vaccinated" for many years, starting at 5 weeks, 6, 8, 12, 16 and annually. Now I vaccinate at 7 weeks, 12, 16, 1 year old, and then every three years. Some breeders of other breeds don't vaccinate their dogs at all. Personally, I think that is foolish, but everyone is entitled to their opinion and what works best for them.

I think there are many different "strains" of parvo, and there is more to it than any of us know. Some strains are simply difficult to survive from, where others may be more mild and some older pups may come out of it with little help without ever being diagnosed.

[S.R.Patch]

Slaux,
I think it's all in the immune system and as far as weak/stronger strains of parvo I don't know, only that 3 were dead in 16 hrs, the one I took in probably would have been dead without the first medicine and the other two in the litter were never really bothered to mush with it.
I ask the vet about giving another shot and he said don't bother about it, after examining the one pup he guaranteed the others had already been exposed to it 4 or 5 days ago, it was up to there immune system to fight it off, that's all your doing with the shot, giving them a small weakened exposure to the virus and allowing their immune system to react and build antibodies for any future exposure to the disease.
The last litter are all alive and other than the one male, they didn't show much effect, the one male I had to treat for 5 days before he was back eating. Today he was at the gate wagging his tail barking at me when I came to the kennel. He's got some catching up to do in the weight department but otherwise, he's eating, drinking and fighting to be petted.
Age is a benefit but I had a buddy bought a 7 month old pup from Bill Stone yrs ago. He never vac. the pup cause the thought Bill had. It was a good big pup that ran with the pack that winter. The next Spring come June, the pup came down deathly sick and couldn't be saved. Died of parvo at 14 months old.
You have to wonder how the coyotes aren't wiped out by parvo, distemper and other diseases. Oh, I'm sure a number of them are, old, sick or young, but the strong live on to breed and strengthen the species. Now I'm not condoning not to vac., but the facts say, these pups will never be effected by parvo again and if in the wild, might be the ones left to breed on. It's just been an eye-opener to see the mixed effect and result of the disease among these two litters.
That's the hard thing about these virus, it may be 4 or 5 days after exposure before any pup shows clinical symptoms of the disease. All the while, your feeding and handling petting the puppies, they're all acting healthy and playing. So as your mixing it up with them, your unknowingly spreading the virus to every thing in the kennel, your hands, shoes & clothes all contaminated. I figure everything in my kennel now has a high tier level of resistance to parvo.
We just don't think about what all our hounds run across while out in the field. A sick or dead coon or fox could be the beginning of what you carry back to the kennel.

[warddog]

I remember several years ago the coon population in northern Indiana was severely depleted from parvo as reported from the DNR. The deer population has been depleted from blue tongue in specific areas over the years so these things do get rampant at times in the wild. Funny how the blue tongue took affect 5 to 8 miles from me but I never noticed a single case close. I do think a lot of these diseases are a result of the individual's immune system or resistance to it because I too have had litters with just one pup having parvo which the vet treated and it survived while the others showed no signs of it at all. Haven't had that experience in many years and I'm thankful for that. It seems to me like these things also come in cycles.

[Slaux]

Patch, agree with everything you've said and always enjoy your posts. Still think it's a good idea to get a shot into them at 7 weeks, as that's what worked for me. You may very well be correct in your assumption, it would seem amazing that coyotes, wolves and foxes, etc aren't wiped out by Parvo. Certainly some must perish from it, but yes, the strong survive. On the flip side, African Wild dogs are near extinction, blamed mostly on parvo, - however that could be conjecture and there may be much more to it than that....

[Tsa la gi]

Sorry to hear about the pups SR.
I had a scare with these. A few days ag they were running all over the place, next morning two were acting and looking sick. I noticed one nasty pile of puppy poop. took them imediately to the vet. They tested for parvo and coccidia. I`m glad it was coccidia, still lost a nice male pup. I have been giving them Albon and will till the 17 th.
I give the pups the first 5 way the day I wean them from the mother. I am a firm beleiver in the shots.
Come Run

[Pine Lakes]

The only case of parvo for me was a pup I purchased directly out of IFC Taylor's Sock It To Me and Milt's Tara. Tara was directly out of spur and a Chico's Northway Venture female. I paid $200 for him and took him to the Vet when he became ill. The Vet had him for 4 days until he died which cost me $500. So in the end I had $700 in a dead puppy. That was in 94 I think, so it is good to see that the treatment for this horrible disease is more effective these days.

[S.R.Patch]

All 9 puppies are doing well. I had enough medicine to give 6 puppies 4 days treatment. 2 puppies got 5 days treatment and 3 never got any as they never showed any depression or lack of eating or taking water, the other 4 pups, 2 got 3 and the other got 4 days of a pill. Vet said to come back if I need more medicine but I think he didn't have much hope of them lasting and didn't want to stick me with a big bill of medicine. It was $114. for the medicine for 4 days and that was enough to get me by.
These puppies showed me a diverse range of immunity, from 3 dieing in 16 hrs from first sign of symptoms, to 3 seemingly never being affected or showing any signs. The other 6 all showed varying degrees of effects from fighting the virus.
In the end, it showed some can be saved if treating the symptoms of vomiting, diarrhea and secondary infection, while allowing the immune system to fight the virus, and others just become overwhelmed by the virus and die quickly. The stunning thing was the three that were never seemingly effected and only watched as their brothers and sisters struggled to various degrees to live.

I'm sure the wild dogs of Africa got their first exposure to parvo from a carry-over from another country. It will cull out their weak. Remember when the first Europeans came to this Country carrying their disease and virus with them? they killed many Natives that had never been exposed to such things and had no natural immunity to them.