The Problem Worsens….

The next day, the 3 littermates started vomiting and had diarrhea. Fecal samples tested positive with the IDEXX SNAP® Parvo test. The shelter vet starts these puppies on the same Canine Parvovirus Treatment protocol as their littermate.

Now that all the littermates have parvovirus, the shelter vet wonders if this could have been the cause of death in the adopted puppy. She recalls that the adopter reported the puppy had stopped eating and had some diarrhea the day after it left the shelter. She also wonders how these puppies got parvovirus infection. Were they infected before they entered the shelter 3 weeks ago or did they get infected while in the shelter?

As she was pondering these questions, a tech remembered something that happened on the day the 5 pups in the litter were spayed and neutered. While they were in the surgery room, one of the kennel staff put a newly admitted puppy in the empty run belonging to the 5 pups. The mistake was noted hours later when the 5 pups were brought back following recovery from surgery. It was the end of the day, so the kennel staff hurriedly removed the new puppy and put the 5 pups back in their run without any disinfection beforehand.

But it gets worse….. several piles of vomit and bloody diarrhea were discovered the next morning in the run with the new puppy. The diarrhea tested positive for canine parvovirus using the IDEXX SNAP® Parvo test.

Could this have been the source of parvovirus exposure for the 5 littermate puppies?

Putting It All Together . . .

Let’s review the timeline of events: