Jess had only been in her new home for a day before coming to the surgery for a health assessment and to start on her vaccinations. She was bright and alert, a lovely Cocker Spaniel full of the joys of life. We gave her a clean bill of health and started with her first vaccinations to protect her against parvo virus, distemper virus, hepatitis virus, and leptospirosis. What none of us knew was that Jess was already infected with the deadly parvovirus which she had before her new owner brought her home. The virus takes a few days to start multiplying and the pups immune system responds slower as it has no previous knowledge of the disease. Within 48hrs Jess was sick. She had a mild diarrheoa to start that soon developed into a severe bloody diarrheoa with vomiting. The virus attacks fast growing cells in the body and there are none faster growing than our intestine lining or our bone marrow which makes our white blood cells. As a result the intestine loses its lining, bleeds and allows all the nasty gut bacteria to get into the blood stream. This causes an infection in the blood and we need our white blood cells to attack and clear it. The virus however has damaged the bone marrow and the body can't make any more white blood cells so we have no defense against the bacteria.
So poor Jess had bacteria leaking into her blood and no way for her body to kill them, and was losing vital fluids and elements as she vomited and oozed bloody diarrhea. Most pups don't survive. Fortunately we had admitted Jess early in her disease and she was started on intravenous antibiotics and fluids.
We also kept her on strong painkillers and gave her medication to help her stop vomiting. It took 10 days of intensive care but Jess slowly turned the corner and recovered. She was very brave throughout her illness despite having to have many injections and medications given to her.
We have not seen parvovirus in West Swindon or the surrounding villages in the past 5 years except in cases where the pup already had the disease when it arrived in the area.
Having said that our colleagues in East Swindon have seen a number of cases and the virus is consider to be everywhere and according to some reports it's on the increase. We recommend you always protect your dog against this disease as most are not as lucky as Jess and usually succumb to the disease.
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