I run a rescue here in Orlando. We pulled a pregnant, emaciated, and unvaccinated beagle/shep mix out of our local animal services for rescue. She gave birth the night we pulled her. Our normal rescue housing was full so I brought her and her 8 pups home the next day.
She was a good mama. Everything was going smoothly for 3 - 4 days. Then the runt died (faded). Expected. After that, mama started showing signs of extreme mucous...followed by explosive diarrhea. Then the vomiting. She stopped eating at 5 days. She dried up. I was giving her fluids every night, offering her all sorts of goodies to eat....not improving. Had her on Clavamox...still nothing. I hospitalized her at day 6. She died one week later, still not eating. At the end of her days she had very bloody diarrhea and bloody vomitus.
Fast forward 5 weeks. All pups were sniffly at one point, lasted maybe 2 or 3 days, then no symptoms. They were on Clavamox for a week, then an anti-viral. About a week ago the weakest of the bunch died after the feeding. I saw him 10 minutes prior, he was totally fine. Then the next day I actually got to witness start to finish the death of the next pup. He appeared to have a heart attack...labored breathing, I gave him a couple of breaths, he seemed to come out of it...then gone. Very quick. I had the vet check to see if they choked on food...they hadn't.
We originally thought that the parvo test we did on Miss Ruby (the mama) was a false negative. We thought it might have been tiger heart parvo. I had the 3rd pup opened up to check for the tell-tale signs on the heart...nope.
I got blood work on them, everything is in range. The vet thinks it's some kind of virus. I've always suspected distemper, but animal services and others I have spoke w/ said if it was distemper that the pups would have been dying much sooner than now.
Tonight another one died. They were running around, excited for their food....checked on them a few minutes later, the biggest and healthiest of the group was gone.
Mama had 4 different vets look at her prior to her demise and no one could come up with anything definitive...distemper, parvo, erlichea. Any rescue friends out there have any experience with something similar to this? I don't feel like the pups are fading, I feel like they are dying of *something*. Vet thinks necropsy won't show anything definitive, especially if it's a virus, but I'm sending this pup out on Monday....
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