Parvo Worries

Our puppy has parvo. More accurately, one of our puppies has parvovirus, and the other, to date, does not.

They have had the same vaccines on the same days. They play together and go pretty much everywhere together. However, Bruce has been at the vet since Friday being stuffed full of antivomiting, antidiarrheal, antibiotic, and antiviral drugs along with everything else in a well-rounded IV drip, being force-fed for intestinal stability, and so on. Poor puppy. I suppose once this is all over, presuming he makes it, he'll be used to being handled by people other than his two favorites. Meanwhile, Wanda is happily soaking up all her usual attention plus what he'd usually get, eating like a pony (she's too small to eat like a horse), and generally being her usual bratty cute self.

Bruce is also beginning to do a sort of bobble-head thing that worries his vets greatly. They can come up with all sorts of opportunistic diseases which might cause such a thing. I suspect, though, it is an exaggeration of a longtime Bruce trait, which is that if he is very tired and a little worried about falling asleep, he'll sit and nod for quite some time before giving up and wilting. In a strange scary place full of strange scary people, he wouldn't sleep readily.

We took him over to the emergency clinic from the regular one last night, since the span from the last person leaving on Sunday to the first one in on Monday seemed like a long time if we were worried about spiking fevers, septic attacks, or seizures. As it turned out, his temperature did go up a bit, but it also went back down again, and he was pretty stable all night. I'd call the money worthwhile for the peace of mind, but I, for one, had none anyway.

If he pulls through, we won't be looking for another home for him anymore. I think we've settled that he's our dog, whether we go sailing on to a limited registration and some spiffy performance titles or just hang out on the couch together.