|  About a month and a half ago, my life was affected more than I could have ever imagined by Parvo, or Parvovirus. Petey, my American Bulldog, was the best dog I could have ever asked for. He was my big 100 pound baby. He was the BFG, and everyone loved him. My two other dogs, both Pitbull Terriers, were his best friends. We were a big family.
Then, on Saturday, July 11, 2009 he started to get sick. He was throwing up and acting sad. We were flat broke! Taking him to the vet wasn't an option, so we called around and talked to a few people and everyone said that Pepto Bismol works. So we were giving him the meds, watching him, and hoped it would get better. The next day he seemed worse. He wasn't drinking any water and he wouldn't even get close to his food. We didn't have internet so we couldn't research about it online. It was Sunday though, so even if we wanted to take him to a vet we couldn't (unless we took him to the ER Vet, which would cost thousands!). So, we did what we could... we watched him closely, and then, he started to drink water again. We were so happy! He also started moving around. Still, though, we set our alarms for 6 in the morning so we could call around and find a vet that would take a small down payment and bill us. We went to sleep and at 6 am my alarm went off. My boyfriend woke up first and turned the alarm off. I fell back to sleep, and felt weird. I woke up and turned around to my boyfriend staring me in the face. "What are you staring at??" It was really weird.. Then, it hit me. I looked at him and asked if Petey was okay. He just stared. I jumped up, screaming, ran outside, I was hysterical. Finally, I came in to see my Petey's body wrapped up in covers. "Are you sure he's dead?! Can't we take him somewhere and they can do something???" I was being unrealistic. It was real, it wasn't a dream. On Monday July 13th, my Petey died.
And from there, it only got worse. His body was just laying there. What do you do with your dead dog? We sat down, talked, and finally decided we'd take him to my Dad's house to bury him. I had to call my sister to tell her what happened. She was just as hysterical as I. At this point, we didn't even know what happened to him or why he died... we thought he might have gotten into some rat poison or got bitten by a snake. It took us a total of 8 hours to dig his grave because he was so big. The last time I touched his sweet paw is a moment that I won't ever forget. But this isn't even close to the end of my Parvo story.
A few weeks prior to Petey's death, we'd taken in a cute little puppy that we named Armani. He was skinny, but seemed so sweet and loving so we decided to keep him until we could find him the perfect home. Well, two days after Petey passed away, Armani started to get sick. He had the same symptoms... the throw up, diarrhea, loss of appetite, loss of interest. This was our worst nightmare. We force fed him water the entire day, but as soon as nightfall came, his diarrhea became bloody and this is when we panicked. We got paid on the 14th and had money so we decided we wouldn't take any chances with him on this one. We rushed to the E vet at 11 pm on July 15th. They did some tests and about 5 minutes later told us that he had parvo. They told us that they could treat him for the night, then we'd have to pick him up at 8 am and take him to our regular vet. Just the total for the E vet would be six hundred and ninety something, and she said in all we'd spend over 2 grand and his chances are still slim because he was already so sick. In other words, she told us we could spend 2 grand and have a 50/50 shot or just put him to sleep. We had to take our only option. It was the 2nd saddest day of my life. I cried so much I couldn't even cry anymore the next day. I was so depressed and scared. If any of my other dogs got sick, I don't know what I would do! I wondered how in the world my Petey got it, because supposedly he'd had all his shots... Well, we figured out that the family we got him from must have lied to us about giving him his vaccines.. they told us he'd had his first two and only needed his last, and we got him his 3rd vaccine as soon as we got him.
This was the start of my OCD research about Parvo. I spent the next two to three weeks looking up everything about it. I found so many things, including websites that had a 90% success rate with an at-home remedy for dogs with Parvo. If there was such a thing, why hadn't I heard about it?? On top of the at-home remedies, why had I not even heard about parvo itself?? As the horrible virus that it is, I feel obligated to let everyone know about it. And the reason? Because it is very easy to keep your dog alive if he happens to get parvo, as long as you can recognize it early!!
I got the horrible phone call I'd been dreading about a week later on Thursday July 23rd... another dog had parvo. But, it wasn't one of mine. It was my sister's puppy, Lily. I felt horrible! But from all the research I'd done, I knew that we could help her. She made some tea from the recipes she'd read, started feeding her pedialyte, and spent every waking moment watching her. She didn't want to take chances, so she took her to the vet and got her started on IVs. The vet knew she didn't have much to spend, so he sent my sister home with some tips and filled Lily's back up with some electrolytes and medicine for the nausea. By Monday July 27th, Lily was fine again! Sure, it took lots of hard work and research and many sleepless nights, but Lily is still here.
I probably didn't have to write this entire novel to show how horrible Parvo is. I'm sure there's a lot of you that have heard of it and even some that have been affected by it. But for some reason there are people that don't know about this horrible virus. The virus that lives for months on some surfaces and isn't airborne, but close to it. It spreads on feet, shoes, car tires, hands, soil, basically anything you walk on. So, if you have a puppy, make sure he is correctly vaccinated. Don't just take anyone's word for it. Keep him away from other pups until his vaccine schedules complete. And if you own a rotweiller, pitbull, or any other breed especially susceptible to parvo, take even more precautions. I'll always have to live with the fact that my buddy, my baby, my sweet cuddle buddy isn't with me anymore and it's because of me. I could have done more for my baby, and it kills me to know that. Don't let what happened to me happen to you, or anyone around you. Spread the word! This is my new life mission, and I vow to start an organization for this cause one day.
So, to you MyLot, what is your parvo story? Can you help spread the word? An easy research on google is enough to know everything.
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