Puppy Training How To Prevent Parvo In Your Puppy

Parvo is a very, very deadly virus. In young puppies it will often kill 90% of the puppies that develop this nasty disease. As a breeder who has experienced Parvo I can assure you that this is a heart wrenching disease. You will lose a lot of sleep and spend a lot of money only to have most of your puppies die. And there is not much you can do-once they have it. But you can in most cases prevent it.

The parvo virus tends to grow in quickly dividing cells. The highest concentrations of these cells in a puppy are located in the intestinal lining. When the virus occurs it kills those cells, and the puppy will start having bloody, foul-smelling diarrhea. Depression will set in. There will be a lack of energy and the puppy will need to lie down. The virus will suppress the white blood cell count. Vomiting will begin and the puppy will be unable to keep food and water down. Dehydration will set in because of the lack of drinking and eating. In very young puppies, this virus can infect the heart muscles and cause "sudden" death. Even with veterinarian care, after this virus sets in, the mortality rate is very high, killing 80% to 90% of those puppies stricken.

Oftentimes a puppy will catch this virus when they go to a vet's office for their wellness checkup. When taking your puppy into the vet's office it is very similar to taking your newborn baby to your local hospital's ICU. It is not exactly what you would want to do. In the event that you absolutely must take an English bulldog puppy to the vet's office, it is important that you make sure that you hold your puppy on your lap the entire time. Do not let your puppy get down unless it is absolutely necessary.

Vaccinating your puppy is a MUST! Even though the breeder you purchased your puppy from vaccinated the puppy does not necessarily mean a tolerance has been built up for the parvo virus. Neopar is an excellent vaccine. This can be purchased through several different sources. An online search can assist in finding it. Neopar contains an adapted live virus, so therefore, has more potency to it. It has been successfully administered to puppies that are only 3 to 4 weeks old. There is a titer level of over 3 million for each dose compared to 15,000 to 150,000 in other brand name vaccines available on the market.

With that said. I am a breeder and not in any way affiliated with Neopar. But I can tell you that we have experienced Parvo in our kennel. But since we started using the Neopar vaccine to vaccinate our puppies we have never since had a puppy come down with Parvo. This is a nasty virus. But it is preventable. We recommend Neopar followed by 4 puppy shots that contain a Parvo booster. If you keep your puppy on track with a good vaccination schedule your puppy should be able to live side by side with a sick puppy that has Parvo without getting sick itself. The vaccine is very affordable and only costs several dollars to administer. Don't shortchange your puppy by skipping its Parvo vaccinations.