If there’s one common theme that we can see in many of the 850+ customers we’ve worked with over the past two years, it’s this: dog owners don’t seem to understand just how aggressive and fast-acting the Canine Parvo virus is.
You can go to bed one night, with a perfectly healthy-looking, happy dog, and wake up in the morning to a very sick one – and, yes, the smell of Parvo is unmistakable, as the diarrhea, which can often be one of the first symptoms you’ll see with the latest 2c strain of this virus, is foul and unlike anything else you may have come across before.
We had one customer, in the Pacific Northwest, whose dog first showed symptoms of Parvo on a Sunday morning, and by later that afternoon, it was already dead.
Even when this virus doesn’t claim your dog’s life quite so quickly, too many people sit around for days on end, watching their dog suffer, and doing nothing about it, because they reckon they have time.
But they don’t!
If you know dogs at all, then you know that 99.9% or more of them love their food, so if you noticed that your dog skipped even one meal, wouldn’t you be concerned that something might be gravely wrong?
Even if one of our dogs throws up, if they’re healthy (and ours are), then they are ready to eat again just a few minutes later, so a dog that’s off his food for several hours (which is in many cases the first sign you’ll see that your dog has Parvo, assuming that you’re observant, of course) should be a big, red warning sign.
Unfortunately, there is so much bad advice around about Parvo that a lot of dog owners are understandably but ill-advisedly complacent.
These dog owners feel secure because:
- Their dog is vaccinated and up-to-date on all of its shots. Here’s the reality: Parvo vaccinations are ineffective against the 2c strain (which is why we are seeing more and more customers with fully-vaccinated adult dogs still getting Parvo and, if they’re not treated, dying), and your dog may even develop full-blown Parvo symptoms (particularly if your dog was vaccinated after he was infected, which is about the worst thing you can ever do).
- Their dog is no longer a puppy, and only puppies get Parvo. Oops, wrong again! Parvo may still primarily be a puppy illness, but more and more adult dogs are getting it now as well. We’re sort of tired of saying this, but it bears repeating until people get it: vaccinations don’t work like they used to – the 2c strain is simply too virulent and the vaccine manufacturers really haven’t caught up with it yet (and that’s besides the long-term health problems with all vaccinations, which most vets keep quiet about).
- They take their dog to the vet’s to have it tested, and the test comes back negative, so they do nothing. Reality check time again: the 2c strain of Parvo often generates a false-negative result, and this particularly applies to the stool sample-based tests that most vets conduct in their clinics nowadays. This means that although you are told your dog does not have Parvo, he actually does, and that leads to more days of inaction while your dog is getting sicker and sicker.
- Their dog never goes outside, so it can’t get Parvo. Sorry to burst this balloon as well, but one of the most common reasons that dogs who are confined to living indoors all of the time get Parvo is because they get it from their owners / breeders! It’s true, you can walk this virus into your house without even knowing it (or transmit it via your hands or clothes). This is why we always suggest that people (including visitors) change their shoes whenever they go indoors.
So, given that there is a ton of bad advice and uninformed hearsay to be found, mainly on the Internet, of course, where can you go to get accurate and up-to-date information that you can use, safe in the knowledge that it will help your dog, and not make matters worse?
This actually highlights another major issue to do with Parvo: many dog owners have never heard of Parvo (until their vet tells them that’s why their dog is sick), which means they don’t know what to look out for. Even more amazing, to us, is that we come across many breeders who know nothing about this virus either. For people in the doggie business, this is basic knowledge that you simply should have!
Well, the good news is that we have written a 100+ page ebook all about Parvo, called Parvo Treatment 101, that you can download to your computer in minutes – and the best part is that it’s 100% free.
This book contains more or less everything you need to know about Parvo (e.g. the symptoms, including the different types of stool to look out for, treatment options), which makes it a great place to start.
However, if your dog is already sick (i.e. a vet has confirmed that he has the Parvovirus, or he shows any of the classic symptoms, or even if you know he’s been exposed within the past few days), then you don’t have time to read this book now – you need to administer Parvo treatment at once, because the one thing you don’t have with this virus is time. You can always read our free book later, once your dog is stabilized, or better.
We hope that you found this article both interesting and useful, and if it helps you save your dog’s life, even better. However, we do have a load more information about Parvo treatment for you, which is in addition to what’s in our free book.
We’d like to close by encouraging all dog owners to at least be educated about just how devastating this virus can be, and about the various treatment options (you don’t need to take your dog to the vet’s and part with anywhere from $500 USD to over $10,000 USD, for a success rate that offers no better odds than tossing a coin, because effective, inexpensive, safe Parvo home remedies are available), so please, if you know anybody with a dog, then do forward this article, and/or our free book, on to them – you just never know who might need it, and there’s nothing better than knowing that you’ve helped to save somebody’s family pet from the excruciatingly painful death that the Canine Parvovirus often brings.