Fifty years ago, in the days before distemper vaccines were developed, my parents-in-law used to breed Borzois. One day their favourite caught distemper at a dog show. Of their several bitches, the only survivor was too crippled to breed again.
A few days ago I watched Slade, a young fawn and white bull terrier cross bitch, die. She was a gentle and when well, I am sure, playful young dog, only just out of puppyhood. Her owner was a young man struggling to survive on the dole. He obviously cared about her.
When she fell sick he carried her nearly a mile to the surgery in his arms. I certainly could not find it my conscience to turn him away even if he did not have any money. Almost as soon as I saw her I knew she had parvovirus.
The dull lifeless posture, the smell of the diarrhoea and the little pools of frothy vomit, the flaccid squelchy feel to her guts, the fact that she was not vaccinated, all told an unmistakable story.
I took her into the isolation ward in my hospital and gave her antibiotics, fluids and pain-killers. The pale almost grey tinge to her gums was a grim warning of the probable end of the story, but it is always worth trying.
We kept her warm. My nurses cleaned her up each time she vomited. At five o'clock I could see we were losing the battle. Just after eight the nurse called me back, and I watched the dog her take her last breath.
The young man who owned her had been going to bring her for vaccination the following week, he said. He had meant to bring her sooner but there had always been something more pressing to spend the money on. Diseases like distemper and parvovirus are rare now in the leafy suburbs of, let's say, Ilkley, but take a trip to any of the big estates in Bradford and they are still there. Without vaccination it would not be long before they were common in Ilkley once again.
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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