ParvovirusEverything you wanted to know…and some things you wish you didn’t

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In 1978, dogs around the world suddenly began to die, develop-ing bloody diarrhea and rapidly (often overnight), progressing to fatal dehydration. Canine parvovirus arrived and exploded round the world within mere months, infecting millions and killing thousands of dogs. “Most viruses go into a new host and just die out,” says Laura Shackelton, a postdoctoral researcher at Pennsylvania State University, who has studied the evolution of parvovirus in both dogs and cats. “This one took off.” How could this happen?

Canine parvovirus is very similar to the long known feline panleu-kopenia virus (FPV). Soon after its appearance, parvo was classi-fied as a mutation of FPV – in fact, the first vaccines used against parvo were FPV vaccines. Prior to the parvovirus outbreak, the only widely used vaccine for dogs was distemper. At some point, cats’ kidneys were used to develop the distemper vaccine and this was shipped around the world and injected into dogs. If Clare Thompson is right, the distemper vaccine was grown on cat kid-ney cells and the cats were infected with FPV.

Another possibility is that cats that were vaccinated for FPV shed that vaccine through their feces – a very real risk with modified live vaccines. The feline parvovirus could have easily mutated into canine parvovirus. In Vaccines for Biodefense and Emerging and Ne-glected Diseases, the authors state that the trouble with modified live vaccines is: “...there is a high probability of back mutation and reversion to virulence once introduced to the animals.”

Regardless of how canine parvovirus originated, it is well accept-ed that it is a man made disease and the result of vaccination, either for canine distemper or FPV. This much is obvious because the outbreaks were sudden and massive and they first surfaced in countries that regularly vaccinated dogs and cats.

As with all “new” viruses, parvo is constantly evolving and mu-tating but it has a faster mutation rate than most other viruses. Today, nearly thirty-five years later, parvo remains the most com-mon viral disease in dogs.

There are two canine parvoviruses: canine parvovirus-1 and ca-nine parvovirus-2. CPV-2 is the primary cause of the puppy en-teritis that we commonly see. Over the years, parvo has mutat-ed from CPV-2 to CPV-2b to CPV-2c. “This wasn’t a reversion,” Shakelton notes. It seems that dogs may be getting the ultimate revenge on cats: the CPV-2c strain of parvovirus is now crossing species and infecting cats with another brand new virus.

Now that parvo is apparently here to stay and is mutating at a rapid rate, how can we protect our dogs and, most importantly, our puppies from this potentially fatal disease? Many vets and dog owners would quickly reply ‘vaccinate them!’ and that might protect your dog. But the real question is, “at what cost?”

Unvaccinated dogs have long been targeted as vectors for disease. Vets and immunologists claim we need to vaccinate at least 75% of the dog population to keep deadly viruses like parvovirus un-der control – they call this herd immunity. Dog owners who do not vaccinate are blamed when viruses like parvovirus continue to spread and mutate. The vets tell us that as long as there are unvaccinated dogs, parvovirus will always be in the environment. And so we vaccinate.

Few people have stopped to ask if the vaccine itself is responsi-ble for the spread and mutation of parvovirus. If this seems far fetched, take a look at the history of the polio vaccine. Poliomyeli-tis is a virus that attacks the spinal cord, causing muscle weakness and paralysis. When the polio vaccine was introduced in 1955, it was fully credited for the decline in polio. Like influenza, mea-

Back in June of 1997, the Sunday Times featured an article by Clare Thompson about emerging viruses, with the heading: “DEAD RECKONING” Beneath the title, the summary stated: “New killer viruses are emerging every year, unleashed by the very medical and technological advances that promised to control our environment. Nature may be telling us to stop, but who is listening?”

The article went on to state “Newly emerging viruses are now the biggest threat to mankind. In the past 20 years, scientists have discovered around 30 new diseases, a staggering rate of one or two each year, most of them spread from animals to man. All are immune to antibiotics, and they can mutate so fast that the handful of antiviral drugs available quickly become obso-lete.”

“Medical technology has spawned its own demons…there is no doubt that new medical developments, such as vaccines grown in animal cells or animal-to-human transplants, might easily contribute to an epidemic.” The article then offered an interest-ing example of a man made epidemic that directly affects our dogs: it stated that parvovirus was created when vaccine manu-facturers cultivated the distemper vaccine on infected cats’ kidneys.

Too Little Too Late

Deaths from polio per 1,000 people

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sles and whooping cough however, polio was already in decline before the vaccine was introduced. What happened with all of these diseases is exactly what happened with parvovirus.

When parvovirus hit in 1978, it exploded because dogs had never been exposed to anything like the virus and they had no immunity to it. A single exposure to par-vovirus however, provided dogs with long lasting immunity and this immunity could be passed to puppies by nursing dams. Dogs soon became immune to the initial CPV-2 virus and although that original vi-rus is still with us today, it isn’t usually a cause of epidemics because as more dogs were exposed to the disease, they devel-oped immunity.

The same thing happened in humans with polio, influenza, measles and whooping cough – eventually, enough people were exposed that the viruses were effectively controlled by the immune system. Many people credit the decline in mortality from these diseases to vaccination. In 1977 however, McKinlay revealed that these diseases were already in serious decline before the vaccines were ever introduced.

Getting back to polio, if we take a look at this disease today, there are some interest-ing and worrisome trends. Today, polio is only prevalent in a few third world coun-tries with poor sanitation. In Nigeria, the polio vaccine is mutating and the World Health Organization is blaming the unvac-cinated children. The WHO claims that the virus in the water supplies – passed by vac-

cinated children - is supposedly safe but is picked up and mutated by unvaccinated children, becoming a new virulent strain that is infecting both vaccinated and un-vaccinated children!

As more Nigerians give in to the pressure to vaccinate however, more of their chil-dren are infected with the mutated virus. In 2007, 69 children were paralyzed and in 2009, despite more children being vac-cinated, that number reached 127. A vi-rologist with the Center for Disease Con-trol and Prevention, Olen Kew, says that there’s no difference in virulence between wild polio viruses and the mutated form. “The only difference is that this virus was originally in a vaccine vial.” What this means is that as long as children are vac-cinated for polio in Nigeria, the polio virus will remain in the environment.

Official concern is that the new virus will spread beyond Nigeria’s borders into sur-rounding vaccinated countries, and that it will spread from there to people outside the African continent. Are we facing a new polio epidemic, caused by the vaccines sold as a panacea to prevent it?

This is not unlike what is happening with the bird flu virus. Virologist Chairul Anwar Nidom has done some pretty interesting research showing that mass inoculations keep the disease in the environment by:

Producing weakened forms of the an-tibodies to develop in vaccinated pop-ulations;

Which means that more birds are vac-cinated;

Which means an increase in genetic mutations in the birds which, in turn, increases the virulence and severity of the virus.

Avian disease specialist Dr Charles Rang-ga Tabbu has also spoken out against mass inoculation for the bird flu as a scientifical-ly baseless policy. Veterinary pathologist Dr R Wasito has noted that vaccination for the bird flu has allowed it to mutate and that other animals including dogs, cats, raccoons and flies can now carry the mu-tated virus.

Could the same thing be happening with parvo? According to an article in The Vet-erinarian by Mark Kelman, “animals that have received at least one vaccination (for parvovirus), represent 28% of puppies in-fected, and 11% of adults infected.” That’s a large number.

There are a lot of reasons for vaccine fail-ure, the most relevant being blocking of the vaccine by maternal antibodies. These days, there are many high titer/low pas-sage vaccines that claim to override ma-ternal antibodies. The good news is, most

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1900 ‘20 ‘60‘40

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TOO LITTLE TOO LATE Deaths from Polio (per 1,000 people)

vaccination

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(McKinlay, J.R. and McKinlay, S. (1977) The Question-able Contribution of Medical Measures to the Decline of Mortality in the United States in the Twentieth Century. The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 55 (3): 405-428)

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manufacturers show that these vaccines protect most puppies when given at 12 weeks of age. The bad news is, high titer/low passage is just a fancy way of saying there is a lot more antigen (up to 65 times more) in the vac-cine that will be shed into the environment through vaccinated puppies.

Ironically, another human intervention that is increasing the threat and spread of parvovirus is the use of Tamiflu to treat infected dogs. Antiviral medications, like vaccinations, will result in further mutations in the vi-rus as it adapts to its environment. Tamiflu has been banned for human use in Japan because of the high incidence of psychotic reactions. Inter-estingly, Tamiflu is manufactured from an extract of Chinese Star Anise, an herb which is also associated with neurological effects.

Meanwhile, as Clare Thompson predicted, parvo has continued to mutate rapidly since 1978. It has moved into a new ecosystem, and is adapting to that ecosystem in a hurry. Viruses that successfully switch hosts are rare, but potentially catastrophic. Canine parvovirus has now become a major threat to the conservation of wolves. About half of the wolf puppies in Minnesota have succumbed to canine parvovirus. Carnivore parvovirus isolates have caused also disease in lynx, bobcats and raccoons.

As tempting as it is to blame unvaccinated dogs for the spread of parvo, the fact remains that if the original CPV-2 strain was all we had to worry about, there would be only a few minor outbreaks because most of our dogs have developed immunity. But as parvo mutates through the use of modified live and recombinant vaccines, it will remain one step ahead of our dogs – and now our cats. Vaccinated dogs are virally active, and for 21 days after vaccination, they are shedding the virus every time they go out in the yard, on a walk, to the dog park, the vet’s office or to training class. And now, with their immune system compromised by the vaccine, and with the ability of recombinant vaccines to mutate and create new viruses, vaccinated dogs become a viral incubator.

Does the parvo vaccine protect our dogs? The answer is, “protect them from what?” There is a heart disease called cardiomyopathy that is asso-ciated with parvoviruses. Cardiomyopathy did not affect dogs before the parvovirus outbreak or was very rare. Since the parvo pandemic of 1978, cardiomyopathy is prevalent in many breeds and breeding dogs are rou-tinely screened for this often fatal disease. It is believed that the parvovi-rus vaccination is likely to be the cause of most cases and that vaccination created the heart muscle association in parvovirus that is not seen in nat-ural infections.

Like polio and the bird flu, the parvo vaccine may not only keep the virus in the environment, but it may be responsible for the new and dangerous mutations that allow it to cross back into cats and other species, transmit through the air and cause other potentially fatal diseases such as cardio-myopathy. Furthermore, 28% of vaccinated puppies still get the disease. It would appear that in the long run, parvo vaccination may create more

Tamiflu and Parvovirus

Ironically, another human invention that is increasing the threat and spread of parvovirus is the use of Tamiflu to treat infected dogs.Antiviral medications, like antibiotics, can result in further mutation of the virus as it adapts to its environment. Parvoviruses, like flu viruses, are mutation prone and experts are not surpriesed that they would evolve and become resistant to Tamiflu, just as bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. Researchers in Indonesia have discovered that in the case of the bird flu, the combination of vaccination and Tamiflu is responsible for the emergence of more lethal strains of the virus. In humans, Tamflu resistant swine flu cases have been reported in Vietnam, Japan, Hong Kong, Den-mark and the US.There is no research to show whether the use of Tamiflu is partly responsible for the muta-tion of parvovirus; in fact, there is no research on Tamiflu on small animals at all. Tamiflu is not approved or formulated for small animals and needs to be compounded by a compounding pharmacist or put into suspen-sion by veterinarians.Human studies on Tamiflu are not encourag-ing either. The FDA has required its manufac-turer, Roche, to print the following disclaimer on Tamiflu labels:“Tamiflu has not been proven to have a pos-itive impact on the potential consequences (such as hospitalizations, mortality or eco-nomic impact) of seasonal, avian or pandemic influenza.”Moreover, an FDA spokesperson told the British Medical Journal, “The clinical trials...failed to demonstrate any significant difference in rates of hospitalization, complications or mortality in patients receiving either Tamiflu or placebo.”

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problems than it solves. But people are myopic at times and, in the fear of our dogs dying from preventable disease, we vaccinate them today but don’t worry about what can happen tomorrow.

If there is one lesson life has to teach us, it is that life goes hand in hand with risk. Too many people believe they can eliminate risk with vaccination and this just isn’t the case. In a short term clinical or field study, parvo vaccination may appear protective: unfortunately, nobody is taking a long, hard look at the long-term fallout and what it can mean for our dogs, for us and for the environment.

Parvo Vaccination: Panacea Or Pandora’s Box?

There are five criteria that should be involved when making any vaccine decision. A vaccine would be a good idea if the following five criteria were met:

• The disease has a high mortality rate

• There is no known cure for the disease

• The vaccine for the disease is known to be effective

• The vaccine for the disease is considered safe

• The benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks

Let’s take a look at these criteria and begin to pull away the layers of confusion surrounding parvo vaccination and puppy vacci-nation schedules in general.

Mortality Rate

Despite the media scares and dire veterinary warnings, parvo has a survival rate of about 85%. That doesn’t mean 15% of puppies die from parvo, it means that 15% of puppies who are exposed to it – and actually catch it – will die. The survival rate however, is greatly influenced by the treatment options.

Parvo Treatment

There are many things you can do to increase your puppy’s chances of survival, should he catch parvo. It is important to remember that parvovirus is essentially dysentery: solve the diarrhea and you will cure the parvo.

There are many herbal and homeopathic treatments that are very effective at treating parvo symptoms. Choices from com-mercially prepared products like Parvaid to simple homeo-

pathic remedies and nosodes are not only inexpensive and easy to do at home, but puppies treated this way have a higher surviv-al rate than puppies treated with traditional methods including Tamiflu. Knowing the symptoms of parvo and starting treatment immediately will also increase your puppy’s chances of survival.

Vaccine Efficacy

Data from the Virbac Disease Watchdog show that 28% of vacci-nated puppies and 11% of vaccinated adults still get parvo. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the most common is the pres-ence of maternal antibodies.

When puppies are very young, they are protected from disease by ingesting their mother’s first milk, called colostrum. This rich milk contains maternal antibodies against disease, which the mother passes down to her puppies. The puppy’s immune system is not fully mature, or active, until it is around six months of age, so the maternal antibodies provide passive immunity against dis-ease for each puppy.

When a puppy with a reasonable amount of maternal antibodies is vaccinated, the maternal antibodies will essentially inactivate the vaccine, just as they would a real virus. What they can’t do however, is protect the puppy against the chemical soup in vac-cines including mercury, aluminum and formaldehyde, in addi-

tion to foreign proteins and possibly retroviruses. The adjuvants contained in vaccines are

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designed to stimulate an exaggerated immune response, to make certain that the body responds to the small amount of virus con-tained in the vial. Unfortunately, this heightened reaction can also cause autoimmune disorders which are affecting an increas-ingly large number of dogs.

Vets and pet owners used to believe that “more is better” when it came to vaccines, but most now know that there are very real dangers associated with vaccination. So, when designing a pup-

py vaccination schedule, the goal is to catch the small window in time when the maternal antibodies are low enough that they will not block the vaccine, but the puppy is young enough that he is not put in unnecessary danger from exposure to viruses in the environment.

Maternal antibodies weaken over time but the rate of weaken-ing differs between different dogs and even different breeds. The maternal antibodies for parvo are unpredictable in their decline and can last as long as 26 weeks in some dogs. This lack of pre-dictability is why puppies are vaccinated every two to four weeks until 16 weeks of age.

The important point is that it only takes one vaccination to pro-tect a puppy from parvo (or any other virus). Vets are fond of stating that the first vaccine primes the immune system and the second one creates the immunity. This is rubbish. If deliv-ered when the maternal antibodies are low enough to allow an immune response, it only takes one vaccination to protect your puppy and this fact has been common knowledge for forty years.

Another reason for vaccine failure is exposure to the actual virus. Whether you vaccinate or not, your puppy should not be exposed

to areas where parvo can be transmitted. This includes dog parks, busy pet stores and, ironically, the veterinary clinic.

By giving your puppy a series of vaccinations, not only are you needlessly creating a greater toxin load and subsequent illness, you are also exposing him to the environment in which he is most likely to pick up parvo: the vet’s office!

Vanguard tested the parvovirus response in their combination High Titer vaccine. They vaccinated puppies at 6 weeks, 9 weeks and 12 weeks of age and then measured their response to the vaccine by measuring their titers to parvovirus. At 6 weeks, only 52% of the puppies had seroconverted (developed an immune re-sponse). At 9 weeks, 88% of the puppies showed a response to the vaccine. At 12 weeks, 100% of the puppies were protected.

The practice of vaccinating puppies at 6 to 8 weeks of age is a high risk, low value proposition because the chances of the maternal antibodies blocking the vaccine are quite high, meaning you are potentially exposing your puppy to parvo by taking him to the vet clinic, for a limited chance of vaccine success. It would be a lot safer for your puppy if you were to socialize him on the streets and keep him away from the vet’s office or dog park until he is old enough that you know the vaccine is likely to work.

Vaccine failure can also result if the puppy is sick or stressed at the time of vaccination. Once again, it makes little sense to vac-cinate a puppy at eight weeks of age. It is normally at this age when puppies are removed from their dam and litter mates, are thrown into a different home environment and routine, and fed different foods. The chances of the puppy being sick or stressed at this point in his life are quite high, meaning that vaccine failure is more likely to happen at this age.

Vaccine failure can also happen in puppies with suppressed im-mune systems. This can occur if your puppy is on steroids or an-tibiotics. Deworming can also stress the young puppy’s immune system. Finally, vaccines are a very large stress on the immune system.

The Canine Adenovirus-2 (CAV-2) vaccine has been shown to cause immunosuppression in puppies for ten days after vaccina-tion (Phillips et al, Can J Vet Res 1989). This, coupled with the fact that there have been zero cases of canine infectious hepati-tis in North America in at least 12 years, means that the CAV-2 component in vaccines delivers little value at a pretty large cost. If you decide to vaccinate your puppy at 6 weeks, then it is just as likely the vaccine won’t work as it will but now he will be im-

The Canine Adenovirus-2 (CAV-2) vaccine has been shown to cause immunosuppression in puppies for ten days after vaccination. This, coupled with the fact that there have been zero cases of canine infectious hepatitis in North America in at least 12 years, means that the CAV-2 component in vaccines deliv-ers little value at a pretty large cost.

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munosuppressed and wide open to all manner of disease for the next ten days. Even if the vaccine does work, it will not protect your puppy imme-diately, meaning he is very likely to become ill if he is exposed to even small amounts of disease.

On a related note, polyvalent vaccines (con-taining more than one disease component) also increase the risk of vaccine failure. The more antigens contained in a vaccine, the more viral replication the puppy will experience at once, meaning his immune system might be stretched to the limit, allowing one of the antigens to de-velop into full blown disease – and the risk is even greater in small dogs. The immune system is a finite resource and can only be stretched so far - so it is safest to avoid giving multiple anti-gens in one vaccine (Moore et al, JAVMA, 2005).

Finally, improper nutrition can increase the risk of vaccine failure. So if an animal is stressed, for example, the body will be using up resources of vitamin C, vitamin B5 and zinc, all of which feed stress hormones. If these are depleted, and vac-cines are designed to stress the body into mount-ing an immune response and developing anti-bodies to viruses, then (without the appropriate nutrients) the stress response cannot happen. In this circumstance, the vaccine is unlikely to work.

Because Modified Live Vaccines (MLV) are de-signed to replicate in the host over a period of about ten days, the virus can multiply to the point where the immuno-compromised puppy will develop the very disease you are trying to vaccinate against – because there is no or little immune system to recognize and defeat it. It is likely that most disease outbreaks occur in ani-mal shelters because the stressed and malnour-ished dogs are routinely vaccinated – and vacci-nated with polyvalent vaccines. Because their already depleted immune systems are stretched to the limit, they get the disease they’re vaccinat-ed against, and then go on to infect other dogs.

Vaccine Safety

Vaccine safety is intrinsically linked to the above factors that determine efficacy. It is difficult at

best to determine what the rate of adverse re-actions is to vaccines because they are so rarely reported. In addition, the cases that are report-ed are the obvious links where puppies develop hives or hydrocephalus within 24 hours of the vaccine. What goes largely undetected is the chronic disease that vaccines create which can take days, weeks, months or even years to devel-op. But the lengthy interval between vaccination and chronic disease in no way means there is no relationship between the two.

The Purdue studies, although labeled as inconclu-sive at the time, reveal some unique insights into how vaccination can manifest as chronic disease. In this study, the vaccinated but not the unvacci-nated dogs developed autoantibodies to many of their own biochemicals including:

Fibronection (Involved in tissue repair, cell multiplica-tion and growth, and differentiation be-tween tissues and organs)

Laminin (Involved in many cellular activities in-cluding the intelligence, proliferation and movement of cells)

Cardiolipin (Frequently found in patients with Lupus Erythematosus and other autoimmune dis-eases. Cardiolipin is also significantly asso-ciated with fetal loss and neurological con-ditions)

Collagen (Provides structure to bones and soft tissue and likely the reason why a high number of dogs developed mobility problems shortly after vaccination in the Canine Health Con-cern 1997 study)

DNA (Yes, the vaccinated dogs developed autoan-tibodies to their own DNA)

Although this should have sounded some pretty serious alarms, the scientific community found good homes for the dogs, decided that long term

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follow up wasn’t necessary, and said more research is needed before any action is considered. At the same time however, the AVMA Vaccine-Associated Feline Sarcoma Task Force initiated several studies to find out why 160,000 cats each year in the USA develop terminal cancer at their vaccine injection sites. Despite the acknowledgment that vaccine induced cancer exists, the Task Force decided the best plan of action was to continue vaccinating and just figure out which cats were most likely to die. They also suggested that cats receive their vaccinations in their tails as it would be easier to lop them off should they develop cancer from the vaccines.

Sadly, dogs are not immune to this risk. In 2003, the Journal of Veterinary Medicine carried an Italian study which showed that dogs also develop vaccine induced cancers at their injection sites. We already know it happens in humans too, since the Salk Polio vaccine was shown to carry a monkey retrovirus (from cultivating it on monkey organs, just as the distemper vaccine was cultivat-ed on infected cat organs), that produces inheritable cancer. The monkey virus SV40 repeatedly turns up in human cancer sites.

Dr. Larry Glickman, who spearheaded the Purdue Study, says: “Our ongoing studies of dogs show that following routine vac-cination, there is a significant rise in the level of antibodies dogs produce against their own tissues. Some of these antibodies have been shown to target the thyroid gland, connective tissue… red blood cells, DNA, etc. I do believe that the heart conditions in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels could be the end result of repeated immunizations by vaccines containing tissue culture contami-nants that cause a progressive immune response directed at con-nective tissue in the heart valves.”

Parvo Vaccination: Risks vs Benefits

Should you vaccinate your puppy for parvo or should you forgo the vaccination? Ultimately, the decision is yours. What is crucial is that the decision is made on science and not on the false belief that a simple vaccine will improve your puppy’s health and lon-gevity. You simply can’t eliminate risk for your puppy – you can only choose which risk you can live with: parvovirus or vaccine induced disease.

The vaccine decision is the same trade-off. If you vaccinate your puppy for parvo, you are reducing the risk that he may be taken from you suddenly and violently. But this comes at a price and the price is chronic disease which directly affects his quality of life and can also shorten his life. The price you pay for parvo vaccina-tion is an increased risk of cancer, of hypothyroidism, of allergies,

of Cushings disease, Addisons disease, bowel disease, joint dis-ease, heart disease, etc. Parvo is tragic when it hits, but the above diseases can be equally devastating – and ultimately, the number of dogs claimed by cancer alone far, far outweighs those claimed by parvo.

So the choice is yours. However, the following tips on parvo pre-vention and treatment might help you to make a better informed choice.

Parvo Prevention

If you decide to not vaccinate your puppy for parvo, there are things you can do to decrease his risk of exposure. Homeopathic nosodes can be an effective way to protect your puppy from this disease. Avoiding vaccination in the first place is one of the best things you can do to make sure his immune system is in prime health. If your puppy’s immune system is firing on all four cyl-inders, he will be able to effectively battle parvovirus should he catch it – or not become ill at all if exposed to it. In fact, the sur-vival rate for unvaccinated puppies is higher than for vaccinated puppies because they are not immuno-compromised.

As discussed, proper nutrition and avoiding immuno-suppressive drugs and toxins is also paramount to his success at both avoid-ing and recovering from parvo. Additionally, it is important to make sure your puppy does not have a parasite overload because parvo is much more difficult to treat in puppies with worms, giar-dia or coccidia.

This does not mean you should worm your puppy routinely, be-cause this type of toxin can stress his immune system. It means keep your puppy clean, run fecal exams, and if he shows signs of parasites, then you can make the decision to treat him with herbs or diatomaceous earth, which are quite effective for treating worms in healthy dogs and puppies. It is important to note that even herbal wormers can stress the liver and immune system of dogs and puppies, so it is best to treat only if there is a problem.

If you choose to vaccinate, do so in a manner that gives your puppy the best chance of success with the least chance of toxic overload. Current vaccination programs that begin at six to eight weeks of age, with a vaccination every three weeks or so, are hard-ly based on science. They are based on the premise that vaccines aren’t really that harmful and that puppy owners would rather just pay for the cheaper vaccines than to run a titer test. If puppy owners realized the dangers of every vaccine, and the potential-ly high cost of associated vaccine induced chronic disease, most would jump at the chance to titer in lieu of multiple vaccinations.

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Getting back to statistics, at nine weeks, 88% of the puppies in the Vanguard study showed a response to the parvo vaccine. At 12 weeks, 100% of the puppies were protected. Here is one case scenario where titers actually have good predictive value. If you vaccinate your puppy once, and as close to 12 weeks as you are comfortable, and then run a titer three weeks later, then the ti-ter has the ability to determine whether your puppy has serocon-verted or not. If there is any amount of circulating antibody, no matter how small, then your puppy is protected for life and there is no need for further vaccination.

Regardless of what your vet may claim or what you read on Goo-gle, your puppy does not need a booster once he acquires protec-tion – immunity is an all or nothing thing when it comes to virus-es (with the exception of bacterial viruses such as leptospirosis). Like chicken pox or measles, you are either immune or you are not. Some people developed their immunity through exposure and some developed immunity through vaccination. Regardless, once exposed to either the actual virus or the vaccine, you are protected for life and so is your puppy. You must however wait three weeks before running the titer to know if your puppy is protected: the vaccine will partially inhibit titer levels until the immune system adjusts and this takes three to four weeks.

This is a very reasonable approach to vaccination and gives your puppy the best chance of avoiding more than one vaccination. The vaccine itself is also of great significance and don’t be afraid to question your vet on which vaccine he intends to use on your puppy. It is important that there are as few antigens in the vac-cine as possible –vaccines with only one or two antigens in them will both increase the chance that your puppy seroconverts and reduce the risk of adverse event. Sadly, there is no longer a mon-ovalent distemper vaccine. Schering-Plough however, still pro-duces a parvo-distemper only vaccine and this would be the best choice for puppies.

If you run a titer after the initial vaccination (which is hopefully not at six to eight weeks), and your puppy has responded to the distemper but not the parvo, then there are plenty of monovalent parvo vaccines on the market including Neopar, Schering-Plough Intervet or Pfizer. Make sure your vet has these in stock before you get your puppy so you are prepared. If you have to buy the whole lot to get your single vaccine, then buy the whole lot and consider it a donation to a good cause and give your vet permis-sion to use it on other puppies.

It is important that you understand the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to parvo vaccination. It is not a simple shot that will miraculously save your puppy from disease and save you

from thousands of dollars in veterinary care. It is a complicated topic with a complicated solution – and, regardless of which deci-sion you make, potentially unwanted consequences.

Identify parvo for the enemy it is but don’t allow fear to paralyze you. Most importantly, don’t allow anyone to make this import-ant decision for you because once you decide to vaccinate, you can never go back. Arm yourself with knowledge and prepare yourself for parvo’s presence and you will be ready for it and in a good position to help your puppy defeat this enemy.

What Is Parvovirus?

Parvovirus is a viral infection that quickly attacks the rapid-ly dividing cells in the body such as those present in the lining of the digestive tract or in developing white blood cells. Parvo then manifests itself as bloody diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and decreased immune function. Puppies are more severely affected than adults.

The hallmark of parvo is blood stained feces with perhaps a yel-lowish tinge and a very distinct and unpleasant smell. Parvo itself rarely kills dogs – it is the associated dehydration and secondary infection that can be deadly. Certain breeds of dogs seem to show greater susceptibility to parvo and most of these are black and tan breeds such as Rottweilers and Doberman Pinschers. Fortu-nately, parvo is easy for vets to diagnose. A stool sample can be analyzed for parvo antigen in minutes using a SNAP test.

28% of vaccinatedpuppies getparvovirus

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Good Money After Bad

One reason vets advocate vaccination for parvo is that the cost of treating this illness with conventional methods can be very steep. Vet bills totaling in the thousands are not unusual as round-the-clock intravenous drips, overnight stays, blood tests, Tamiflu, an-tibiotics and other treatments add up fast. Most puppy owners are understandably willing to pay these large bills to save their puppies. At first glance, it makes sense: vaccinate your puppy and you can avoid costly vet bills or loss of life in the future. But here’s what they don’t tell you (and it’s pretty important):

< 28% of vaccinated puppies still get parvo

< Parvo kills more vaccinated puppies than unvaccinated

Most vets withhold some seriously important information when they tell you to vaccinate your puppy for parvo. Risk of disease can be minimized but never eliminated – even with vaccination. Given this, it appears you have two choices for your puppy:

Vaccinate him If you do, he may possibly be less likely to suf-fer from parvo. If he does get it however, he is more likely to die from it and is more likely to suffer detrimental long term health effects.

Don’t vaccinate him If you don’t, he may be more likely to get parvo, but he is also more likely to survive it – without expensive vet bills and with less risk of long term consequences.

How much more likely are vaccinated puppies to die from par-vo? Amber Technologies is the manufacturer of an herbal prod-uct called Parvaid which has been on the market since 1997. As can be imagined, they have received a lot of phone calls from distraught puppy owners asking for treatment help. It soon be-came obvious to them that most of the calls they were getting were about puppies that were recently vaccinated and wormed. In 2008, Ambertech surveyed their customers to determine the impact vaccination had on parvo survival. Here are the results:

66% of recently vaccinated puppies treated with Parvaid survived parvo

91% of unvaccinated puppies treated with Parvaid sur-vived parvo

Both groups of puppies were treated with the same proto-col and the unvaccinated puppies clearly had a lower mor-tality rate.

If you want to prevent your puppy from getting parvo, then may-be you should vaccinate. If, however, you want to prevent your puppy from actually dying from parvo, then perhaps you might want to hold off on that vaccine.

An Ounce of Prevention

The first and most important step in treating any disease is pre-vention. If you choose to not vaccinate your puppy, you have tak-en an important step toward preventing him from becoming ill. If that seems counter-intuitive, consider that the first order of business is to build a strong immune system. We are brainwashed into thinking that vaccines create immunity but that simply isn’t true. Vaccines do not immunize, they sensitize.

The immune system is a wonderful thing and it has been func-tioning quite well on its own for centuries without vaccines. As a case in point, there is no vaccine available today that covers the original CPV-1a strain of parvo. It’s easy to think that strain has disappeared but it’s still in the environment.

Diseases are only a threat if the immune system can’t meet the challenge. In the case of the CPV-1a strain of parvo, the virus is just as common and just as deadly as the newer strains. The only difference is that dogs have naturally acquired the immunity nec-essary to deactivate it – even though they haven’t been vaccinat-ed for it.

To avoid parvo – and more importantly, death from parvo – it is crucial to build your puppy’s immune system. Here are some tips to help you prepare your puppy’s immune system against the threat of parvo.

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Refrain from vaccinations

Vaccination introduces genetically modified, adjuvanated and chemically preserved antigen to artificially stimulate an immune response. The problem with this approach is that it turns the im-mune system ‘inside out’. The immune system relies heavily on memory cells deep within the tissues (this is called cellular im-munity). When vaccines are injected into the body, they bypass the cellular immune system and instead stimulate the humoral immune system or the circulating antibodies. This is complete-ly backward to what nature intended and the humoral system suppresses Interlukin 12, on which the cellular system is large-ly dependent. Vaccination makes the humoral immune system dominant over the cellular immune system, effectively turning the immune system inside out.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Russell Blaylock has determined that wide-spread vaccination programs also lead to progressive atrophy of the cellular immune system (the memory cells) from lack of use. For example, coronavirus in puppies is a self limiting, benign dis-ease, just like chickenpox and mumps in children. By vaccinating for these diseases, the immune system is not given the opportu-nity to strengthen through environmental challenges and immu-nity suffers as a result.

Avoid chemical wormers

Here is another dilemma. Puppies that are wormed within two weeks of becoming ill with parvo have a higher mortality rate (according to the Amber Technology study). On the other hand, puppies suffering from both parvo and a worm infestation are at higher risk.

Just as healthy puppies can develop immunity on their own, healthy puppies are able to fight off worm infestations. Healthy puppies are generally not good hosts for parasites.

If your puppy does present with worms, however, it is important to deal with them immediately because it does elevate his risk of parvo. There are effective chemical free choices such as diatoma-ceous earth, pumpkin seed and other herbs which can be very

effective without the threat that chemical wormers present to the immune system.

Feed your puppy the best diet you can

Note this doesn’t mean the most expensive kibble money can buy. In fact, it means avoid kibble altogether. Let food be thy medicine and instead of filling your puppy with corn, wheat and baked and extruded slaughterhouse waste, fortified with synthetic vitamins and minerals, provide him with fresh, whole meat on the bone containing naturally occurring nutrients with maximum bio-availability. At the very least, give him a home cooked diet or a dehydrated dog food product. Kibble should be an absolutely last resort.

Socialize wisely

If you choose not to vaccinate (and even if you do), be smart about where you take your young puppy. Every time your puppy leaves the house, he is being exposed to small amounts of viruses and is building immunity naturally. The key is to not expose him to an environment with large amounts of parvo antigen, such as dog parks, because it might be too much for his young immune system to handle (most puppies’ immune systems mature fully at around six months). Ironically, the most dangerous place you could take any puppy is the veterinary office.

Consider Nosodes

A nosode is a homeopathic remedy made from infective excre-tions, and secretions from an infected patient: feces, urine, pus, blood, hair, saliva, spinal fluid, necropsy tissue section of an or-gan or growth showing pathology.

The late Dr George MacLeod DVM, in his book Dogs: Homeopathic Remedies states that nosodes provide “…a more solid immunity inasmuch as it incorporates the entire defense system, which is mobilized as soon as the nosode is taken into the mouth and builds up protection with each further dose. This build-up leads from tonsillar tissue through the lymphatics incorporating the entire reticuloendothelias system. This procedure is equivalent to

Widespread vaccination programs also lead to progressive atrophy of the cellular immune sys-tem (the memory cells) from lack of use. For example, coronavirus in puppies is a self limiting, benign disease, just like chickenpox and mumps in children. By vaccinating for these diseases, the immune system is not given the opportunity to strengthen through environmental challeng-es and immunity suffers as a result.

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what is known as ‘street infection’ viz., ingestion of virus, etc., during daily contact with other animals, when immunity would be built up in the same way.”

Many homeopathic vets advocate the use of nosodes as a preven-tion for disease and have clinical results that suggest its efficacy.

Treatment Options

Parvo can be treated at home, but it can be a serious disease so it’s a good idea to work with a holistic vet or homeopath to help you along. It’s important to find a true holistic practitioner before you get your puppy: you don’t want to be caught with a sick puppy and nobody to take care of him the right way should he become ill. Stick to your convictions and find a vet who will treat your puppy without damaging his immune system.

There are many vets who call themselves holistic but are quick to dispense the antibiotics and Tamiflu. If your vet chooses this option and you feel it isn’t right, there are plenty of good homeo-pathic vets who will do phone consults. If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Be an active partner in your puppy’s health care.

The following is not intended to represent or replace medical ad-vice, but here are the important things you need to consider if treating parvo at home.

Dehydration

The first order of business is to make sure your puppy is hydrated. If your puppy can’t keep his liquids down orally, then you need

to find another way to get them into him. A quick test for hy-dration is to pinch the skin at the back of your puppy’s neck. It should bounce back immediately. If the fold you created takes two seconds or longer to return to normal, your puppy is probably dehydrated and needs fluids fast. There are a few ways to do this.

Intravenous fluids An IV is normally something that would need to be done in the veterinary clinic. A catheter is inserted di-rectly into the vein and fluids are delivered directly into the blood stream. If you wish to treat your puppy at home, there is still the option to take him to the vet for an IV.

Subcutaneous fluids Your vet can send you home with a Sub-Q kit or you can purchase one online. This involves placing a catheter just below the skin and the fluids create a pocket under the skin which the body absorbs. Some people find that Sub-Q methods are too slow and if the puppy is still vomiting or has diarrhea, he can still dehydrate. If giving Sub- Q fluids, make sure they are warmed to body temperature.

Enema fluids This is perhaps the best way to administer flu-ids at home and it has a good track record. The amount of flu-id you give depends on the puppy. Puppies less than ten pounds would need about 10ml of fluid whereas puppies forty pounds or more would need 60ml. Enemas can be given with an infant ene-ma bag, a bulb syringe or even a standard, clear syringe (not the kind made for needles). Administer the enema very slowly – over several minutes. If you go too quickly, the fluid will just start to squirt out. If the puppy does not need the enema, the fluid will simply come back out again, regardless of how slowly you go. All fluids should be warmed to body temperature first.

Oral fluids The three above methods are only needed until the puppy is able to hold down fluids himself. If he is holding fluids down, discontinue the above. You can help your puppy keep his fluids down by preparing some ginger tea. To make ginger tea, simply add about four teaspoons of the dried herb (or a few thin slices of fresh ginger) to a quart of boiling water. Simmer for ten or twenty minutes, strain the liquid and allow it to cool. Ginger has been shown to alleviate the symptoms of nausea and vomit-ing. Ginger is also very helpful in increasing the immunity of the body. You could also add turmeric to the tea for the same reasons.

Diarrhea

Diarrhea can also cause fluid loss and dehydration. It is important to address the diarrhea as quickly as possible. It may be tempting

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to use an over the counter product to stop the diarrhea but herbal and homeopathic treatments will work best without being sup-pressive.

There are commercial herbal products available to help your pup-py with the diarrhea. The good part about using these products is that you also get the customer service and experience that go with them. This can be immensely useful if you find yourself in an emergency situation without veterinary guidance. There are a few products available but do your homework and determine what their success rate is before purchasing – preferably by talking to people who have used them.

Homeopathy

Homeopathy can be incredibly fast-acting in acute situations. You will hopefully have the guidance of a good homeopath, but the following remedies work very well in many cases. Because home-opathy is based on symptoms and not on diseases, it is not neces-sary to wait for a diagnosis of parvo to begin using the remedies.

Parvo Nosode – Although nosodes are more commonly tak-en as a preventive, they can be powerful solutions once disease strikes. Nosodes can normally be purchased through a holistic veterinarian.

Dr. Gloria Dodd DVM enjoys very good results with the parvo nosode in her practice. “In the very first days of parvovirus in-fection in dogs,” Dodd states, “I was faced with an overwhelming epidemic of parvo-stricken dogs in my clinical practice. I made a 30C nosode from the infected animals’ blood in the form of ster-ile saline solution, and then injected the nosode intravenously into the sick animals.”

“I never lost one animal of the hundreds that came to me in the early epidemiology. These were dogs with other pathologies: Con-gestive Heart problems, Chronic Interstitial Nephritis, and very old and very young dogs with compromised immune systems.”

Homeopathic Remedies

There are three main remedies for parvo symptoms (although other remedies may also be indicated).

Aconitum napellus If you suspect your puppy may have par-vo, don’t wait – give him Aconite immediately, even if it is on the way to the vet’s office. Aconite is for intense physical symptoms that occur suddenly with associated fever and stress.

Phosphorus This remedy is very effective for vomiting, espe-cially if the vomit contains blood.

Arsenicum album This is the main remedy for controlling the acute diarrhea.

Typically, a 30C potency should be fine if that’s what you have at home, but consulting with your homeopathic vet is a very good idea. Watch your puppy for changes. If you see improvement, then wait. If you see improvement, then a regression, you will want to redose (this could be in an hour or in five minutes, it depends entirely on your puppy). If you see no change at all, you might want to try a higher potency or move on to another rem-edy.

Other remedies to consider include:

Mercurius corrosivus If there is blood in feces often with much straining and discomfort.

Crotalus horridus You should add this remedy if there are co-pious amounts of blood in the stools. Dose it frequently along with the main parvo remedies.

China officinalis This remedy can be used alongside the above remedies to prevent dehydration and restore strength after loss of fluids. China can be given in either the acute stage or to hasten recovery after the initial vomiting and diarrhea are controlled.

Antibiotics

Parvovirus is associated with a marked loss of white blood cells, leaving puppies open to secondary infection. You may choose to give your puppy an antibiotic to prevent this. If the right homeo-pathic remedy is found however, this step is often unnecessary. Natural choices for antibiotics can include:

Colloidal Silver – This liquid is arguably the most powerful of the natural antibiotic choices. In a 1992 study published in the Pharmaceutical Chemistry Journal, it was found that that several different preparations of colloidal silver showed very good effi-cacy against the smallpox virus. Another 1972 study conducted by the Department of Microbiology, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan demonstrated that the Herpes Simplex Virus types I and II were totally inactivated by low concentrations of silver nitrate, which is a more caustic, chemical form of silver. It is important to give the colloidal silver right from the onset of illness and not to skip a dose. You can get a good bottle of colloidal silver at a health

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food store for a reasonable price. Ask the store manager what the best brands are as some products are better than others.

Other Choices – There are a lot of antiviral herbs that you can choose from including garlic, astragalus, oregano, echinacea, mullein, licorice and more. There are also essential oils that have antiviral activities including eucalyptus oil and tea tree oil. If you choose to take either of these routes, you might want to do so under the guidance of a good herbalist or holistic vet. Alternately, commercial products can also be effective and Ambertech produc-es a good herbal antibiotic that is designed to work with Parvaid, called Vibactra Plus.

Summary

If you wish to treat your puppy for parvo at home, you must be one hundred percent committed to giving his remedies and treat-ments round the clock for as long as it takes. You will find that

taking notes will help you to keep track of what remedies you have given your puppy and to track his progress.

Once your puppy has sufficiently recovered and is looking for food, it is wise to put him on a bland diet. His intestines will still be raw and damaged and he will be susceptible to bacteria, so a cooked meat and white rice diet for the first couple of days should fit the bill. Instead of giving him a large meal, feed him frequent, small meals and watch his stools for any sign of relapse.

Treating your puppy for parvo at home can be challenging but very rewarding. Your homeopathic vet will help you every step of the way so you can keep your puppy at home, where he feels safe and secure.

This ebook contains article excerpts from Dogs Naturally Contributors Dr Patricia Jordan DVM and Catherine O’Driscoll

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