German Shepherd

[pokoal2000]

Hi. My puppy german shepherd died last month, I believe - distemper. He was inoculated but it did not help. I am thinking about getting another one, but worried about the illness being still around the house. I think my neighbours dog died as well of the same.Do you think it would be safe to bring another dog home?What is the best age for the puppy to be inoculated? And would it work for sure?

[Nienke]

So far 'they' (read: vets) told me, the distemper virus can stay alive in the environment for up to 6 months. Direct (tropical) sunlight kills the virus in an hour though. But best to double check this with Bina and/or mangotogo.

To reduce the risk that the vaccine interferes with the maternal immunity it is better not to start vaccinating before the pup is 7 weeks old (8 weeks when the pup is coming from a healthy mother dog). And to reduce the risks on side-effects (of which there are many) it is better to give single vaccines in stead of the combined (4-in-1, 5-in-1) and then each time with a month in between (and definitely not 2 weeks).

If you can't decide with which vaccine to start, distemper or parvo, there's also a combined parvo-distemper one on the market that contains killed virus in stead of the modified live virus. You need to ask for it though and not every vet has it.

[pokoal2000]

Thank you

[bina]

not sure about distemper will have to check; parvo though, stays around for a really really long time, also along the lines of months... at least my vets told our clients that...

bina

[sbk]

I recall hearing distemper stayed around for quite a while too. You might consider keeping the dog elsewhere until after he's been vaccinated.