and has your dog been diagnosed with distemper?

If your dog has not been diagnosed, you need to find out quickly what you are dealing with. This may not be a distemper case.

Distemper is often seen in two stages. In the first pre-neurological stage — before seizures — you may see hardening of the pads of feet, dulling of the eyes, mucous in the nose, coughing, fever and respiratory trouble. Distemper attacks every system of the dog, so the damage is happening everywhere and there are symptoms you may not see.

It can attack the stomach and make your dog vomit. For a while it may not attack the nervous system, this is because of the blood-brain barrier. However, it will eventually cross the barrier and attack the myelin sheath that protects the nerves. That causes seizures, the neurological stage. The seizures could be seen as any kind of involuntary twitching and shuddering and loss of balance in the dog’s body. It could range from chewing gum seizures, which look like the dog is trying to chew a piece of gum, to full-body convulsions. However, there are dozens of other causes for seizures in dogs aside from distemper.

Since other diseases may mimic the symptoms of distemper, your first step should be to confirm that your dog has the disease. Your vet can take a blood test for you, but by the time you get the results back the dog may be too sick to help. We recommend you get the blood tested anyway, but then treat for distemper without waiting for the results. Then later if the test does come back positive for distemper, you know you have saved your dog. But Dr. Sears has come up with a faster test called the Brush Border Smear.

If you do get a diagnosis, you should go here. You can also read our FAQ.

Here is the treatment for Old Dog Encephalitis, the neurologic form of canine distemper.

Here is a video in which Dr. Sears describes how to perform the spinal tap used in this treatment.

If you need help finding a vet who can perform this treatment, please contact Ed Bond at ed.bond.new.york@gmail.com.

If you are in the Philippines, you should check out this blog.

And everyone is always welcome to read our FAQ.

en español

I adopted a small female Rat Terrier from a high kill shelter in Florida.  She was found as a stray Jan. 17th and I put a hold on her Jan. 22nd.  She was very laid back it the cage and when I visited with her in the viewing room.  She was probably sick already.

I brought her home on Jan. 25th, a Monday morning and this is her story.  I am positive she had distemper and that the NDV serum given to her by a vet in Cooper City on the 29th absolutely SAVED her life.  No distemper test was done because my vet felt it would not really show she had distemper because she was given a distemper shot when she was in the shelter.

Cough started the day after she came home.  Took her to my vet, thinking it was kennel cough.  He gave her antiobiotics and some dog food that hopefully would get her to eat.  He mentioned there had been another instance of dog he had to put down because it got so sick with distemper and said, perhaps, she could have distemper.  He said to keep a close eye on her over the weekend.  She got worse over the weekend and I researched symptoms of distemper.  She started with pitting on her teeth, sick look in eyes, slightly runny eyes, cough, lethargic, 103+ temp for days, not eating (I fed her with syringe – chicken, vitamin and water mix about every 3 hours, lost 1 1/2 lb)..  Luckily she had not started any twitching or seizures and I was lucky enough to find the Save Distemper Dogs website and sent them an e-mail right away. They responded within an hour.  This was the day I had taken her back to the vet on Mon. morning, Feb. 1st, and he gave her different antiobiotics and said it was out of our hands at this point. I really felt and knew she was going to die if I didn’t do something drastic.  Save Distemper Dogs e-mailed me back and gave me the vet closest to me who gives the NDV shot.  It was a horrible windy rainy day and the vet and his assistant came out to my car to give her the shot since they didn’t want her in their office.  Mimi started eating on her own by that Thursday, her fever broke and she started to recover.  I have had dogs for 25+ years and I am convinced she would have gotten much sicker and deteriorated if I hadn’t taken her for the shot.  I am so glad there are people out there like Dr. Sears who are not afraid to research and get the word out on saving distemper dogs.  And Mimi thanks him too!!

Helena Nesbitt
Posted Feb. 10, 2010

UPDATE: 11 years later!

Mimi from Miami now in PA

Copyright © 2011 Kind Hearts In Action Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Update: Kaliber one year later:

Lists of other dogs saved with NDV spinal tap.

SAD UPDATE 2/10/2010: Dixie had a relapse. Dr. Sears suspected some sort of other infection triggered this new attack, but Dixie died Feb. 10, 2010. With this sad case comes a reminder that no medical treatment can offer a 100 percent guarantee of recovery. There are unaccounted factors, and the length of time that passes before treatment is a major issue. Dogs treated with NDV-induced serum within six days of the onset of symptoms show a recovery rate in the high 90s.

1/23/2010: Here’s the story from Dimas De Moya of the Dominican Republic, who sent in photos and video after his 7-month-old pug, Dixie, was treated for canine distemper and is making a recovery.

Received January 23, 2010:

“Well, long story short, my wife and I had to leave town to visit her aunt. We left Dixie in a dog’s caring center (which we regret until this day) to make the trip. The next day after she arrives to our home she started vomiting, that was the first sign something was wrong.  We took her to one vet who said she got a parasite on her stomach. They gave her meds and the next day she was ok. Suddenly  three or four days later I  notice some salivate on her mouth, but didn’t quite know what it was until I saw her having a seizure. I look it up on google and came across with Distemper, I took her to another vet and describe the symptoms and he made a distemper test. Sadly it came positive.

“Look further and discover your page…. The rest is what we are living day by day, praying for her recovery and supporting her every step of the way.

“The treatment was done on Monday the 18^th. She seems to be having good progress, yesterday she presented more coordinated, standing alone and today we noticed her eating even more than the past days. Hopefully she’s on her way to recover from Distemper, only time will tell.”

“Attached is a video of her eating after the procedure was done. She’s a fighter since day one, we do hope she wins this fight thanks to the procedure and our love and caring.”

Here are some photos of Dixie before and after treatment

en español

If a dog is older than 12 weeks and does not have an immune system already compromised by another disease, a shot of the Newcastle Disease Vaccine may be enough to create the response needed to fight distemper. However, the dog should not be in the neurologic stage [seizures], and the shot should be given before the dog has gone through six days of symptoms. However, some pure-bred dogs do not make the needed response, and these include German Shepherd, Poodles, Irish Setters, Gordon Setters, English Bulldogs and Shar Peis. These would need to be treated with the serum.

Dosage

Here are Dr. Sears’ notes on using Newcastle Disease Vaccine, as a simple intravenous shot to the body of a dog in the pre-seizure stage of canine distemper:  This is made with 6 cc of diluent into a bottle of 1000 virus particles. The dosage is 0.2 cc of mixture per 10 pounds of dog. Give the injection twice over 24 hours as factor induced is short lived.  This is the inducer.   If treating ODE [post seizures] the dose is 1/2  cc of same into the foramen magnum

As to the injection site: “There are three veins available in the dog. Cephalic in the front leg. Popliteal in the hind leg and the Jugular in the neck. Any works well.”

Note: Some vets have reported dogs going into shock following the intravenous NDV injection. However, they have been able to manage this with fluids and epinephrine. Others have said they give the shot over a 15-minute period to avoid shock.

Where To Get NDV

You might be able to find the Newcastle Disease Vaccine in an agricultural supply store. But there are sources online.

Jeffers Livestock is where you can order NDV (LaSota strain) online. Make sure you order this one which does not combine any other vaccines with it:

Poulvac® Newcastle B
Newcastle Disease(LaSota Strain)(MLV)
(Fort Dodge) Vaccine
F7-JD Poulvac® Newcastle LaSota
$3.97

http://www.jefferslivestock.com/

The above company is in Dothan, Alabama.

Here are some numbers for them:
Toll Free:1-800-JEFFERS or 1-800-533-3377
Local:1-334-793-6257
Fax:1-334-793-5179
Email: customerservice@jefferspet.com

Alternate supplier

The Newcastle Disease Vaccine can also be ordered through this Web site:

http://www.alibaba.com/