Coping With Canine Distemper

It began with typical cold-like symptoms lots of sneezing, coughing, loss of appetite, heavy panting. We adopted her from a rescue and the first week all she did was lay around and sleep, she was very weak and her temperature shot through the roof, the highest recorded was 103-103.5. We took her to our vet and they initially diagnosed her with bronchitis and then pneumonia but a blood culture was performed and we found out she had distemper She was incubated for about a month and a half and then 2 weeks of antibiotics at home. She barely made it with 2 lasting side effects, most of her permanent teeth never grew out and she exhibited leg twitches that slightly progressed but deteriorated after a few months (myoclonues). We took her to a vet neurologist and he said that her chances of surviving were 50/50, the myoclonus could be fatal. I think we got lucky with this dog but I also believed helped with the reduction of her twitches was getting another dog. After her recovery her leg twitches were pretty bad she would be bored all day and had nothing to do,that appeared to stress her out. I think her mood really affected her side effects, when we adopted another dog right away, her mood changed completely. She was more active and playful and her leg twitches decreased.

It took a lot of effort on both our and the dog’s part to get through the distemper I was pretty pessimistic that she would die at the vet hospital or after we took her home, but after almost a year she’s alive and kicking so far.