Wake Up And Smell The Parvo!

During the past two years or so, we’ve worked with well over 850 customers, and we’ve noticed one common thread, which is: dog owners don’t appreciate just how fast-acting and aggressive the 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 title of this article is not just a play on a popular expression, because Parvo has an unmistakable smell, as the diarrhea, which can often be one of the first symptoms to appear with the latest 2c strain of this virus, is absolutely disgusting and unlike anything else you may have experienced 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 day after day, with their dog clearly not well, and doing absolutely nothing about it, because they think they have time.

But nothing could be further from the truth!

You know what dogs are like - most of them, if not all, absolutely love their food, so if your dog stopped eating, for as little as one day, wouldn’t you be concerned that something could be seriously wrong?

Even if one of our dogs throws up, if they’re healthy (and ours are), then they are eager 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 many dog owners are understandably but ill-advisedly complacent.

These dog owners think they’re safe because:

• Their dog is vaccinated and up-to-date on all of its shots. And now for the reality: Parvo vaccinations are ineffective against the 2c strain (which is why many of our customers are finding that even their adult dogs are being infected, and dying, from this virus, even though they’ve had all of their vaccinations), and your dog may even develop full-blown Parvo symptoms (particularly if your dog was vaccinated after he was infected, which is just 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. If this sounds like a broken record, then we’re not making any apologies, but 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 won’t tell you about).
• They take their dog to the vet’s to have it tested, and the test comes back negative, so they do nothing. Time for another reality check: 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 is another example of how the medical profession has not caught up with the development of the Parvovirus - you think your dog is OK, when in fact he does have Parvo, and that leads to your doing nothing while the virus quietly launches its attack on your dog’s body (mainly the immune system and his intestinal tract) for several days until, suddenly, you see symptoms.
• 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 why 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, with so many myths floating around, not to mention bad advice, where can you go to get accurate and up-to-date information that you can use, knowing that, rather than harming your dog and making matters worse, it will actually increase his chances of surviving this most devastating of viruses?

Because another problem we see all the time is that people have never even heard of Parvo - until their dog gets it, of course - and, somewhat amazingly, we even come across people who breed dogs commercially who don’t know what Parvo is. For people in the doggie business, this is basic knowledge that you simply should have!

Well, the good news is that we have put together a free, 100+ page ebook all about Parvo, called Parvo Treatment 101, that you can download to your computer in minutes.

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.

If your dog is already sick, however, and by that, we mean that a vet has confirmed that your dog does have Parvo, or he shows one or more of the standard Parvo symptoms, or even if you believe or know that he was exposed to the virus within the last two or three days, then you should delay reading this book, because you need to administer Parvo treatment as soon as possible, because there’s one thing you don’t have with this virus, and that 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 and spend anywhere from $500 USD to over $10,000 USD, for a success rate that offers no better odds than tossing a coin, because inexpensive, safe, effective home Parvo remedies do exist), 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 when they might might need it, and there’s no better feeling than knowing that you’ve helped to save somebody’s beloved pet from an excruciatingly painful death from probably the most devastating doggie virus there is.

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