Parvo

A couple of weeks ago, a little dog we called a "mini chow" came into the shelter. He was an adorable young adult, probably a little under a year. He was an indiscriminate breed, tan, shaggy, spitz-y dog, unneutered. He had been with us three days when he started to look really sick. He didn't have the classic symptoms of parvo, and he wasn't a pup, so we weren't immediately alarmed. But he faded quickly- lethargic, dehydrated, lips curled up.

An officer came to pick him up and rushed him to the E-Vet. He tested positive for parvo and was euthanized. And we kicked into overdrive. We put the kennels into quarantine mode for 10 days and started bleaching. We bleached every surface of the kennels, three times. We bleached every door handle, every keyboard, every mouse, every chair, every desk. We threw away anything that we could. We almost fainted from bleach inhalation. We opened the shelter up the next day, but kept the dog area closed. We tested every dog under a year for parvo twice in the next ten days. Volunteers were not allowed in the dog area. We called all adopters of puppies that had been in the shelter with our poor parvo pup. We called all adopters of pups that had been adopted from our sister shelter that had been to the s/n clinic while the pups from our facility had been in the shelter with our parvo pup. And we kept bleaching.

We opened again yesterday, because so far we seem to be in the clear.