Distemper

[Erny]

We recommend they do not take their puppies out walking or socialising until 7-10 days after their 14-16 weeks vaccination. The local dog club with not accept puppies for puppy pre-school (not will our clinic) until after the 14-16 week vaccination.

What discussions and considerations are given towards the importance of socialisation experiences within the pup's critical period of development? IE 8-16 weeks of age?

[Cavalier]

We recommend they do not take their puppies out walking or socialising until 7-10 days after their 14-16 weeks vaccination. The local dog club with not accept puppies for puppy pre-school (not will our clinic) until after the 14-16 week vaccination.

What discussions and considerations are given towards the importance of socialisation experiences within the pup's critical period of development? IE 8-16 weeks of age?

I agree this is an important factor - but the risk, especially for parvo infection, is way too high in this town, so the risk far outweighs the benefit of socialising.

We recommend people socialise their pups with dogs they know are fully vaccinated and o their own property only.

We used to do puppy preschool from 8 weeks of age (after their first vaccine) but got cancelled after the second week after a parvo outbreak in all the pups. The dog club had a similar situation.

[Do No Harm]

I am not going to disclose my exact location on a public forum, however I can tell you I am in a major north west town and from discussions I have had with the other vets in the North West (There is only Karratha, Port Hedland, Newman, Broome and Kununurra), all 4 vet clinics still see distemper in the towns.

The mines are a huge distance away from the major towns, we dont publicise what diseases we are seeing on a regular basis in the local newpapers - thats just ridiculous. So of course a mine worker is not going to hear about a case of distemper in a town 700ks away.

Sorry, I had asked where the threat is not which town you are in, but thanks for the information about the range - which is enormous. I yesterday met another regular at our local dog park who happens to be a truck driver who makes frequent trips "up north". He takes his dog along with him so I naturally mentioned this (distemper outbreaks) to him. He'd heard nothing about it and said that truckies mostly know each other through arranged meetings at truck stops along the road or roadhouses for meals etc. Apparently most have their dog with them. He said that none had mentioned anything to him but that he'd let them all know about the risk up there. His own 6 year old dog was vaccinated as a pup followed by a first year booster and nothing since which happens to be the recommendation of Ronald Schultz for long term and probably life long immunity.

You had said in an earlier post "The only reason we are disgnosing more is because we have many more families

moving up this way to work in the mines and they are bringing their beloved pets with them." so I thought you may have been implicating them in some way of being a contributing cause of the situation. Sorry if I misunderstood you.

In any event it sounds like you have a terribly difficult and probably hearbreaking situation up there, so I do wish you well in coping. It's not an enviable task by any means, so Good Luck.

[Cavalier]

You had said in an earlier post "The only reason we are disgnosing more is because we have many more families

moving up this way to work in the mines and they are bringing their beloved pets with them." so I thought you may have been implicating them in some way of being a contributing cause of the situation. Sorry if I misunderstood you.

In any event it sounds like you have a terribly difficult and probably hearbreaking situation up there, so I do wish you well in coping. It's not an enviable task by any means, so Good Luck.

No thats not what I meant.

What I meant from that comment was as more families are moving to town, and the stray/camp dogs are still roaming the streets spreading these diseases,

more people are actually bringing their dogs to the vets to actually be diagnosed with these conditions. Before they were just left to die out on the streets.

The situation is also the same with heartworm. About 25% of untreated dogs test positive to HW up here. All because of the large number of untreated dogs

acting as a reservoir for the worm.

Its not a huge issue for us. We knew the situation before we moved up here, so its what we expected. We do our best to advise pet owners about the high

risk of these diseases and what they can do to minimise the risk. I estimate about 50% of the pet owners I speak to have had a puppy with parvo at some stage

while living up here and most are purebreds from reputable breeders and the owners have done the right thing by getting the pups vaccinated. As the dose of

virus pups are exposed to here is so high until they have had their third vaccination they are still at very high risk. All we can do is educate people about the

risks and do our best to help people when they find their pup has become infected with one of these diseases.

Luckily with parvo our success rate with treatment is around 95%. Distemper pups are not usually that lucky.

Edited September 3, 2009 by Cavalier