• Kyle@lemmy.ca
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    17 hours ago

    Parvovirus is a puppy owners worst nightmare. It’s kind of puppy ebola but super contagious and high mortality rate.

    Typically puppy owners never accept a puppy younger than 8 weeks without their first vaccination. And don’t let them go out in places exposed to other unknown dogs until after the second vaccination at 16 weeks. So those early weeks should be spent with other vaccinated puppies to socialise them. And if you are going out, carry them or put them in a cart, or take them places you know no sick dogs have been within a year.

    Yet another reason why raising puppies is so much harder than people think.

    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 hours ago

      Yeah, parvo specifically attacks multiplying cells. It’s not super bad for fully grown dogs, which only multiply cells to maintain a baseline. But for puppies that are actively growing, it basically causes them to fall apart at the seams. Their bone marrow and intestinal lining basically turns to mush, since they’re almost entirely made of multiplying cells.