Fri 19th March: A mixed bag

Mountie has a home at last!

 As often happens it was a day of this and that, with the expected good news about the fast recovery of the parvovirus puppies, and black fluffy Mountie moving to his forever home.

As for the puppies, all but one are eating and drinking well and were ready to leave hospital, although with nowhere to go one pair had to stay another day at Concordia.   As far as the question of them being infectious is concerned it would be yes, they would still be shedding the virus and couldn't be with other unvaccinated puppies.  

However adult dogs that are healthy and have been vaccinated with DHPPiL (the standard vaccinations given) should be safe, as even a properly functioning immune system would protect against infection.  You would have to ask yourself how all the many unvaccinated adult stray dogs survive if  they hasn't acquired natural immunity to such infectious diseases. If they manage to reach adulthood, which many don't of course, then you know they must have been exposed to these viruses and survived.  In fact even in a litter of puppies that have been in contact with parvovirus, it's very unusual for all of them to develop symptoms and more common for some to get sick (and maybe die) while the others are totally fine.  Over the years I've seen many, many outbreaks of parvo in puppy litters, and I still have some survivors living with me on Lamma.  No adult dogs ever became sick, even when having direct exposure to the infected puppies. 

You may recognise some of these names

Funnily enough, I've been having a major clear-out at home over the past week, and I found a small book where I listed all of the puppies that I took in, remembering back then (2010/2011) all puppies stayed with me as we didn't have space at other Homing Centres.  I have the names and microchip numbers, as well as what happened to those puppies written next to the names, either 'Adopted', 'Died' or later 'Moved to Tai Po', so it's easy to see when there were viral outbreaks.  Thankfully we see far fewer infectious diseases now than in the early days and tick fever is the most common health issue in puppies now. 

Puppy girl Maple arrived at Tai Po

On the subject of puppies we had a new arrival at Tai Po today, still quite young but months old rather than weeks.  Her name is now Maple and she'll be heading off for her health check and vaccination in the next day or so.

As always, please complete the adoption questionnaire if you're interested in adopting.  We have so many lovely, sweet and healthy puppies and adults waiting: www.hongkongdogrescue.com/adopt/adoption-questionnaire/