Why Would You Sit There And Watch Your Pet Die?
As I’ve probably mentioned before, our main business is selling organic, chemical-free pet health products to help treat a variety of common ailments, although we specialise in Canine Parvovirus (and Feline Panleukopenia, the cat version of Parvo).
The longer we run this business, and the more pets we help treat (we’ve dealt with over 4,640 cases since March 2007!), the more it astounds us how so many people seem happy to sit there and watch their pets die right in front of their very eyes.
Part of the problem is a lack of education about pet health generally, but given that Parvo is probably the biggest dog killer of them all, more information should be provided about this devastating virus.
(BTW, Parvo Treatment 101 is an excellent downloadable ebook all about Parvo – and it’s 100% free!)
Because people don’t know about Parvo (and may not even have heard of it), then they don’t recognise the symptoms and often assume it’s something else.
And if it does turn out to be Parvo, then that is often a fatal mistake to make, because the latest strain of this virus is incredibly fast-acting and aggressive, and can claim your dog’s life in 12 hours (or less) of the first visible symptoms appearing.
So, what are the symptoms of Parvo?
Well, many people are aware that your dog is likely to vomit a lot (the vomit often starts out as an off-white substance not unlike egg whites, and then turns to a frothy yellow bile) and have diarrhea (which, by the way, is really foul-smelling).
But the problem is that in many cases, these are not the first symptoms you’ll see – but you have to be somewhat observant.
You see, most dogs will start by losing their appetite, not drinking and being lethargic and unwilling to play.
Now, for us, if any of our seven dogs refused food for more than a few hours, we’d be very worried indeed and we’d take action straight away.
Surprisingly, many of our customers, on the other hand, will sit there and watch their dogs not eat for several days without doing anything at all.
You really don’t need to be an expert on dogs to realise that this is not normal and that something must be wrong – how many dogs do you know that voluntarily go on two or three day crash diets?
So, back to the diarrhea.
Another classic symptom of Parvo is blood in the diarrhea, and it may just be a few spots, or it may be a complete gusher.
Either way, this should ring alarm bells, but again, in many cases, people still just sit there and wait to see what happens.
Needless to say, what often happens is that their dog dies.
(Another piece of advice – if you do take your dog to the vet’s, many will tell you that once the bloody diarrhea appears, your dog is doomed and you should kill him immediately. This is utter rubbish, as most dogs with Parvo go through the bloody diarrhea phase, and it most certainly does not mean that your dog is going to die.)
Remember too that dogs have a much faster metabolism than us humans, and although the often-quoted ratio of one human year equalling seven dog years is an over-simplification, this still means that letting your dog suffer in pain for two or three days is more or less the same as letting your child suffer for two or three weeks.
I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t do this, so why would they treat their pets any differently?
In conclusion, if there’s a moral to this story, it’s this: you need to get to know your dog’s behaviour quickly and thoroughly, be observant, so you can notice any changes, and then, when you see anything out of the ordinary, investigate and take action immediately.
Your pet depends on you, so please don’t let him down!
Tags: canine parvovirus, visible symptoms, common ailments, downloadable ebook, fatal mistakeBELIEVE IT OR NOT:
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