Parvo

[eve04]

A good friend of mine has a 12 week old boxer. She took him out side this morning and noticed he had blood in his bowel. She called her vet, which is out of town and took the dog to her sister vet, they tested him for parvo and it came back negative but his white blood count was off so they told her to watch him and see if he chages in the next 24 hours. He's eating and playing as if nothing is wrong with him. I have a boxer that is 2 years old and have never heard of this and she is upset becuase the vetis telling her that he can posibly die from this. Does anyone out there know anything about this.

 

[Net45582]

Parvo is a contagious disease that can be fatal if not caught early. Has your friends pup had any shots? Is it also vomiting white foamy liquids? The blood in the stools can be a sign of a digestive infection. An infection will also throw the blood counts off. Hopefully,its just an infection that can be cleared up with meds. If the pup does start showing any other symptoms or the gums go pale instead of pink I would get it back to the vet asap. It would also be wise to keep this pup isolated from other dogs until a true diagnosis can be determined.

 

[JulieM]

How much blood, how was the stool itself, did it have an unusal odor? Is he vomiting at all, have they changed foods recently, how long have they had him? His white count was "off" - was it high or low? Has he been vaccinated recently?

Lots of questions, because blood in the stool can be caused by so many different things!

Is the vet that told her he might die the same vet that sent him home to watch for 24 hours? In which case, what the he** are they thinking and why didn't they keep him in the clinic for 24 hours?

 

[Shanz]

It could be a bad bacterial infection of some sort. Did the puppy eat something he shouldnt have (garbage maybe)?. Parvo poop is usually a profuse bloody and very smelly diarrhea. We had 2 dogs come into the clinic i work at and we swore they had parvo. They had firehose diarrhea that was bloody and VERY smelly. Their WBC count was up but the parvo test came back negative. It turns out they had a very bad bacterial infection

 

[kpowell]

Don't fool around with parvo!

Stella had parvo at 6 weeks and the vet said if we hadn't gotten her to the clinic where she could get 24 IV treatment she would have died. Stella was throwing up and had diarrhea, and that's how I knew it was parvo even before I took her to the vet. She had had her first shot series at 5 weeks, but the vet said that it hadn't had time to build up her immunities. She had to stay at the clinic 24/7 for a week. Very expensive. Now she is worth her weight in gold (literally)!

 

[carver1102]

parvo treatment can be very expensive. but, extremely worth it in the long run. take it from me, i lost a boxer to parvo. she was sick on a thursday, we thought she ate poisonus berries. friday, feeling a little better. saturday she was sick. but we couldn't afford an emergency vet service to even find out why she was sick. sunday was bad. monday moring we took her first thing and found out it was parvo, she had caught a live possum in her mouth, the vet thinks they had a fluid exchange. we lost her monday afternoon around five. parvo works quickly w/o the 24 hr iv it is almost impossible to overcome.

i am glad you caught it early, and glad you took her to the vet to be treated. hope all turns out okay.