In the last few weeks we have seen an outbreak of Parvovirus in dogs. For those of you who are not familiar with this disease, it causes vomiting and diarrhea in your puppy. It will also suppress the immune system of the dog. This means it acts like HIV or AIDS. We normally vaccinate all dogs for this disease. But, some people think that one dose is enough. And it is not.
All of our Parvo vaccines are now high titer Parvo vaccines. This means that the vaccine will over run a maternal antibody titer of around 40-60. The street virus can give your dog Parvo when their antibody titer gets down to 80. These titers are nothing more than dilution factors. In other words, a titer of 1:80 means that we can find one part in 80 parts or one ounce in 80 ounces of water. Before high titer Parvo vaccines our puppies could not respond to the vaccine until their antibody got down to 1:32. Now our vaccines are better, but the momma dogs have been given these high titer Parvo vaccines and they are giving our puppies more antibodies in their colostrum. Therefore, the puppies are getting immunity from momma that is lasting longer.
Our answer for this is to vaccinate our pups against the Parvovirus when they are older. But, I have seen Parvo affect younger pups. And we do not know when this antibody titer is going to allow our vaccine to stimulate an immune response. So, I recommend starting at 9-10 weeks of age and giving Parvo vaccine every two weeks until the puppy is at least 15-16 weeks of age. Until they are 9-10 weeks of age they need to stay at home with you to eliminate exposure to the Parvovirus. After they are four months of age they can go to the park and other places other dogs and animals are.
Another point to watch for is with our horses. Is their water intake adequate during the heat? This time of year I see a lot of dehydration cases. This can cause colic in a horse and an electrolyte imbalance. If your horse is used to pond, well or creek water and you take them to town, they may not drink town water. To help with this I recommend putting these performance horses on electrolytes and either haul your own water or disguise the taste. To disguise the taste of town water it might only take some peppermint candies dissolved in the water. I have also had clients using everything from molasses to Jell-O to flavor water and it is not that messy.
The worst case I have been involved with, that was saved, was a dehydration colic that took over 11 gallons of intravenous fluids to correct the imbalance and rehydrate. Please, don’t let this be your horse.
Dr. Tim E. O’Neill, DVM, owns Country Veterinary Service in Farmington, Ark.
