Animal And Company: RE: [boxer lovers] Parvo

Parvo is an AWFUL disease. Sadly, many years ago, my mom had FAR too many
dogs. I suspect she is a bit of a hoarder and it shows, a small bit, in her
pets. At the time, she had 4 dogs and I had two who were boarding with her
for a few weeks. She kept her dogs in the back yard. One of them knew how to
open the gate so we kept a clip on it so she could not open it.

One day, we came home to find the bushes behind our yard cleared by the
power company and the gate standing open. No dogs. my Boxer and one of my
mom's mutts were on the porch. My mother's other mutt and her Papillion were
gone. We found her spaniel later that day wandering on a nearby busy street.

I spent the next week desperately searching for my elderly Springer spaniel,
who was a pet of show grandparents and her Papillion and mutt. We found her
mutt, quickly in the pound. Brought him home. two weeks later, we found my
Springer. In the pound, past the date he was supposed to be put to sleep. No
one had gotten around to doing it yet. This despite the fact that I had been
there three times before and no one had told me he was there. I had been
desperately begging them to let me look at the dogs, describing him. They
maintained they had no spaniels at all and no medium or long haired dogs.
when I found him, he had been shaved down. BADLY! Seems whoever had found
him recognized his quality but had no idea his age. When they shaved him
(probably at home) they realized he had several tumors just under the skin.
That must have twigged them to his age. The pound insisted he was not a
spaniel because spaniels have long hair, right?

We never found our Papillion.

We thought all was well. we had most of our family back. A short while
later, we realized one of my mom's mutts was not well. we took him to the
vet and found he had been exposed to Parvo. It was serious and we were most
likely going to lose him. Mom made the decision to go ahead and put him
down (the vet said it was too far gone and it would endanger the other
animals, cost a small fortune my mom didn't have to treat and not be
comfortable for the dog with little chance of success.

We had all the other dogs checked. Happily, no one else was infected. Mine
both had shots and hers were lucky.

Parvo is an awful and deadly disease. If you love your pets, protect them.

After this incident, my poor old Springer boy had to be put down. The
experience in the pound was more than he could overcome. I think he finally
just gave up. Bless his heart. He was 14 1/2 and had helped raise both of my
children as well as my first Boxer. He was a terrific dog! His name was
Rowdy. And I will always miss him. Ditz, mom's Papillion was a cute little
guy but well named. We try to tell ourselves that, because he was so cute,
someone probably took him in and he spent the rest of his days on someone's
sofa catching Snausages for a living<G> I hope so, anyway.

In that incident, our family lost three dogs when all was said and done. We
have chipped every dog we owned (Rowdy and Bo were chipped as soon as
possible) and every other dog we have owned since. And we put a combination
lock on our gate with a strongly worded and legal notice to the power
company that ANY time they enter our yard, they MAY NOT DO SO (except in
case of extreme emergency) without notifying us, FIRST!

And, all of my dogs are in the house unless accompanied by one of us. They
live in crates when we are not home. always.

Take care of your animals. You are all they have. They don't KNOW about
Parvo. You do. They don't KNOW what lies beyond their yard. You do. they
trust you. do you deserve that trust? I don't. but I TRY to live up to it.

Karon Adams
Accredited Jewelry Professional (GIA)
You can send a Rosary to a soldier!
www.facebook.com/MilitaryRosary
www.YellowRibbonRosaries.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: boxerlovers@yahoogroups.com [mailto:boxerlovers@yahoogroups.com] On
> Behalf Of Lisa Wiser
> Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 7:38 PM
> To: Boxer Lovers Yahoo Group
> Subject: [boxer lovers] Parvo
>
> Got this off another list. Even if you don't show you should be aware
Parvo is VERY
> infectious and can be transmitted by your walking through an infected
area. And you
> should be careful taking your dog to "public areas" like box pet stores,
dog parks, etc.
>
> Get your dogs vaccinated. What follows is the news ... LisaW
>
>
> Ok people. We are having a parvo outbreak in Kansas. Irresponsible
handlers are still
> going to breed shows, obedience and agility events who either have or have
been
> exposed to parvo affected dogs. Some puppies as well as a couple of adult
dogs have
> died. So please make sure your dogs are vaccinated and protected against
this deadly
> disease. Do some research too as parvo has now morphed into its 4th strain
of the virus
> since discovered in the early 80's.
>
> There was also a huge outbreak of parvo from the Aussie nationals in
California. AKC
> does have a ruling that you cannot attend events for at least 30 days
after exposure.
>
> Protect your dogs !!
>
>
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
> ------------------------------------
>
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