Coping With Canine Distemper

Girl Lee is our beautiful Lab/Pit mix. When we found her, we thought she had a cold, so we took her to the vet to get it cleared up so we could get her spayed. Turns out she had distemper–the vet gave her a 25% chance of survival. We decided to give her a chance. The vet prescribed antibiotics, and took off her flea collar. He wanted us to come back weekly after that to check on her.

She actually wasn’t even supposed to be our dog–she was supposed to be my brother-in-law’s dog. We went over to his house daily to check on her and help take care of her. We would make sure she had food and water, clean her eyes which were oozing, and give her lots of attention. Then she got to the neurological stage. It was then we often had to hold the food up to her mouth to get her to eat. She liked drinking on her own, but we still sometimes had to hold handfulls of water to her mouth for her to drink, or hold her up while she drank from the bowl.

We fed her Nutro Max (what we had already been feeding our other dog) mixed with beef or other protien. The beef not only gave her more protien, but was an extra incentive for her to eat when she didn’t want to. We took her to the vet weekly and knew everything from head to toe about her–my husband even knew how much she pooped and the consistency. We figured being that her life was at stake, there could not be such a thing as too much information, and the vet agreed.

One day, we went to feed her, and she was gone—not passed away gone, not there gone. Someone had left the gate open by accident. We searched for her for over 2 hours. We were almost going to give up when we decided to try one more time–there she was by some trees!! She only had enough strength to lift her head, but she did wag her tail. We think she was trying to follow us when she left the gate–it was then she came home with us. Each vet visit, she was getting worse–and the vet never really gave us hope–we knew it was grim, but she was worth it.

Then one day, she stood more than normal in a day–next day it was more, and so on. And she started walking more and eating more and so on. Then, she was sitting up when the vet walked in the room one day–that was the first time he smiled. ” i think she’s gonna make it” he said-best words i’ve ever heard in my life. Soon after, we hit a milestone–we were not taken to the isolation room when we went back to the vet!!!

During all that time, she never had a seizure–not one!! Even the vet could not believe that. She had that keratosis (sp?) on her nose and the pads of her feet, but that is just about gone now. She does have a twitch in her back leg. She has kicked all of us more than once!! But that’s ok!!! Two nails on each of her back legs won’t grow, even though the others have.
It’s been about 8 months now–and she is healthy, and happy, and 24 pounds heavier!!!