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To: RushCrush; vetvetdoug
I'd guarantee she had Parvo vaccine with the shot series your vet gave her then... and if she's six months, she's past the really critical risk anyhow. Pups get parvo, adults rarely do.

I can't explain why Parvo isn't discussed or as well known as the other canine diseases... Because it's environmental, meaning it's ~everywhere~ - they don't get it from another dog, they get it anywhere they go. It's intestinal, causing sever diarrhea, and the poor pups just dwindle and dehydrate and get weaker and weaker and usually die, whether you treat them or not. Very heartbreaking to watch. You can spend hundreds nursing them and they still die. Every unvaccinated pup I've ever seen has ended up with Parvo. Usually pups belonging to friends who try to get by on the cheap and forego shots. They may get away with that with adults, but not pups.

Pinging vetvetdoug, just to double check my facts... I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

63 posted on 04/28/2006 11:43:01 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
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To: HairOfTheDog

I really thought everyone knew about the dreaded parvo. Maybe just because I'm involved in dogs and worked for a vet. It is the scariest thing we are likely to see in our puppies. Unfortunately maternal antibodies interfere with the vaccine, so there is a window in which the puppy may be vulnerable.
susie


78 posted on 04/28/2006 12:00:51 PM PDT by brytlea (amnesty--an act of clemency by an authority by which pardon is granted esp. to a group of individual)
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To: HairOfTheDog
I slept in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn. Parvo is a single stranded 32 nanometer DNA icosahedral virus that infects fast growing cells. Puppies are susceptible because their cells are fast replicating and the viral DNA can incorporate into the cells easily. The vaccine is 80% effective and some dogs get Parvo no matter what due to their genetic makeup (Rottweilers/Dobermans)and cell receptors. The bloody diarrhea and vomiting is due to the senescence of the cells being infected with the virus. Treatment includes antibiotics, colloidal suspensions (hetastarch/plasma), and fluid and electrolyte replacement. Most clinics have a fairly good success rate in treatment if instituted early. If one waits till the pup is comatose, shocky and septicemic, the success rate is not too good. Vaccinating puppies beginning one week post weaning and every 17-21 days until 4 months of age will provide adequate immunity in most cases. Stress and concurrent disease in the puppy will sometimes compromise the vaccine protection and the pup will come down with the disease. Dogs over the age of a year get parvo rarely because the cellular replication process is no longer rapid and the virus cannot replicate easily. Parvo, Norwalk agents, Norviruses are all in the same viral family. Mutation is rare but does occur with the Canine Parvovirus every thirty or some odd years into other species. Aleutian Mink Disease 1930 Feline panleukopenia 1978 Canine Parvovirus..all three of these are closely related and resultant of mutations from one species into another.
92 posted on 04/28/2006 12:36:36 PM PDT by vetvetdoug
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