parvo in an adult dog?

[CharlieDog]

I think my moms dog, Sheldon may have parvo. He's a street dog, we found him in a parking lot, and as far as we know he hasn't been vaccinated. He's acting depressed, he doesn't want to get up, drink or eat, he's vomited a couple times today, almost every time he drinks water. He seems better today, but if he's not better tomorrow we're taking him to the vet. He's a year old, and I didn't know if an adult can even get parvo or how badly it affects them.

He's been drinking on his own a bit tonight. His vomit has been mostly thin liquid, not foamy, which is what I thought parvo throw up looked like. We just won't have the money to take him until tomorrow. We're all flat broke.

Is there anything we can do at home for him until then? My mom thinks he got into something because he seems a little better today than yesterday, but I'm not sure myself. He's been this way for a few days now, since Monday night.

He doesn't go to the dog park, but my brothers dog does, Enzo does, and my brother works at a doggie day care, so I'm pretty sure that any one of us could have brought it here. Thoughts?

 

[HayleyMarie]

Yes adult dogs can get parvo. We had to deal with Parvo with Badger when he was about one and a half. I would keep him hydrated as much as you can. Dyhidration is what makes these dogs go down hill. And get him to the vet ASAP if the conditions worsens or does not get better. Keep us posted

 

[CharlieDog]

If he's not better in the morning, we're taking him to the vet. We're scraping what money we can to take him to the vet to have them do what they can.

 

[corgipower]

And breathe hon. Those symptoms can be so many things. Stress, worms, generic stomach bug.

No matter what it is, keeping him hydrated is the most important thing for now. Sending vibes that it's not anything serious and that he feels better soon.

 

[Zoom]

They can, but what you're describing sounds more like a bad case of worms too.

 

[lizzybeth727]

And breathe hon. Those symptoms can be so many things. Stress, worms, generic stomach bug.

No matter what it is, keeping him hydrated is the most important thing for now. Sending vibes that it's not anything serious and that he feels better soon.

^^^This.

Good luck, keep us posted!

 

[CharlieDog]

He's been wormed, and when we picked him up they treated him for a bacterial infection as well, but he was fine up until a few days ago. He just got worse and worse. I don't know if he's having the runs because he hasn't pooped in the house, he's still getting up to go to the back in the woods.

I just really want him to get better. He's the first dog my moms really bonded to, and they love each other. He's usually such a happy dog, its hard to see him sick. My dad was initially saying he couldn't help out at all, but he's offered to cover half of the bills now, so I'm really thankful he had a change of heart. My moms by herself a lot, and Sheldon is her company most of the time. I really appreciate the vibes guys. I'll let you know more when I find out myself.

 

[GlassOnion]

I would keep him hydrated as much as you can.

This is the best you can do, regardless of parvo or no. Dog is vomiting and losing liquids that way. But get him to eat some food too if he'll hold it down.


Also when you do take him to the vet, just let the vet know ahead of time that you're a bit strapped for cash. See if they can work with you on payment if need be, be that in installments with a down payment or reducing 'packages' and what not.

But as an adult dog, he's probably been exposed to parvo and gained some immunity to it. Parvo is possible in adults, but there's other stuff (as mentioned above) that can look like parvo and are a lot more common.

How are his bowels by the by?



Oh and are there other dogs present? Will you be around other dogs? Might want to wash your clothes/hands/body/everything before taking him to the vet, out in the morning, or where ever there might be other dogs (especially puppies, of course).

 

[CharlieDog]

I'm not sure about his poop, he's still going to the very back of the yard and in the woods. I would have followed him to check, but my mom was the one who took him out.

Also, I forgot to mention in the other post that I did see his vomit tonight, and its very dark yellow and foamy now. There was a rather lot of it, so I figured he'd thrown up everything that he did drink.

We offered him some boiled chicken and rice, but he didn't want any. He did take a piece of bologna, but he spit it right back out.

 

[GlassOnion]

I'm not sure about his poop, he's still going to the very back of the yard and in the woods. I would have followed him to check, but my mom was the one who took him out.

Ok well I wouldn't be too worried about him shedding. A year old isn't super old but I'd imagine that he would've been exposed by now. Usually that can take care of shedding, but it never hurts to be careful.

Basically an adult dog will have likely been exposed, the body can mount a response but there's a couple days delay (incubation period of parvo is about a week, symptoms show up around that time + a few days) where the virus could be shed. However, if he's been exposed before at some point in the last 12 months, then he'll have some response to it and if he's showing clinical signs it's likely that by now the body has already started fighting back, which means the antibodies will be binding the grand majority of the antigens (the virus in this case) in which case he likely won't be shedding.

And of course, this is all assuming that it's even parvo in the first place.



Is he drinking? It sounds like he is but just throwing it back up?

 

[CharlieDog]

Yeah, he'll drink a little bit, and he kept it down for about thirty minutes, but then he threw it all back up. On the carpet of course, lol. It looked like the same volume of what he had drank. I don't know if they tried to force fluids in him or not, but he threw up several times last night.

 

[Saeleofu]

Parvo is farther down on the list when it comes to adult dogs, regardless of vaccine status. On the plus side, adult dogs generally fare much better than puppies when they do get parvo.

Vibes that it's nothing too serious and he recovers quickly and fully.

 

[Barb04]

How is he doing this morning?

 

[GlassOnion]

And did y'all take him in today?

 

[Lizmo]

Kim, what you are discribing is exactly what Blaze did a while back. Drink, throw up. Drink, throw up. Just a clear liquid. Horrid stool, with some blood.

Wasn't anything serious the vet said after checking him out. The vet told us to give him some Pepto and feed him 3-4 TBSP of a chicken/rice/broth mixture every 3 hours for a couple days. He got better within a day or so and was fine.

 

[CharlieDog]

Well, he got worse last night. We took him in this morning, the vet said it "smelled like parvo" but we couldn't afford to test for it. They put him on a IV and kept him on it all day. He had just pretty much blood and mucous coming out of one end, and yellow bile vomit out of the other. He looks pretty bad off. They gave him medicine and want us to bring him back tomorrow, but todays visit was 450, and thats exactly all that we had. I don't have anything to pawn, or I would. My mother doesn't have any more money, and my dad doesn't either. They want us to bring him in for another treatment which would be another 450. But we just can't afford it.

He's semi responsive. He was moving his eyes when we would talk to him, but he only picked his head up and looked around when Steven walked in. His pupils are dilating, but his breathing is labored sometimes, and then sometimes it's fine. He would walk outside to use the bathroom, but he mostly just vomited. He drank a lot on his own, but he would just throw it back up later. He drank a bit before I had to leave, so I don't know if he threw that back up.

I would have updated sooner, but I was at work.

 

[GlassOnion]

$450 for one day of treatment??

That's pretty **** near the entire bill at our clinic! What was the breakdown of the invoice?!

 

[CharlieDog]

I have no idea. They wanted to keep him overnight, which would have made the bill a grand. I didn't think to ask, unfortunately.

 

[Saeleofu]

:yikes:

We have parvo patients staying in the hospital for a week and their bill ends up being $800 - $1000

The good news is that parvo CAN be treated at home. Hospital is better, but it's not impossible to treat at home. Parvo does have a distinctive smell, so if it smelled like parvo, it probably is.

Keep him hydrated is the big thing. If you can get him to drink clear pedialyte or something similar, that would be great. You might try just giving small, small amounts at a time so that he's less likely to vomit.

I really hope he pulls through

 

[CharlieDog]

Okay, I'll let my mom know to get him some. She's letting him drink a little bit, but he does keep throwing up.

I had no idea that those prices were outrageous. We took him to the same place that we took Ozzy when he got parvo as a puppy. I wish that I'd called my vet to ask about their prices now. They're usually pretty reasonable, and I wonder what they could have done for him for that amount