Ewww

As much of an animal lover as I am, I prefer fur bearing creatures. I wouldn't do well handling reptiles. One of the kids who lived with us for awhile had a toad named Fiona, and while I didn't mind handling her, the few times I had to go get her some live crickets gave me the shivers.
Sunday morning I go into the kitchen to find hubs scooping up what we thought was a 5 inch snake. Upon closer (but not too close) inspection we discover it's the tail of a very large lizard. He mentioned Hellcat having been there a few minutes before, so I went off to search. I find Hellcat in the living room with the body of this thing, which is very much alive. So back with the broom and dustpan again to dump the other half, which was hissing at us. It was an alligator lizard, they are very quick, aggressive, and they bite. I would not have been happy waking up next to one of these.

Speaking of ewww, we had two puppies with Parvo this week. Siblings. These were older puppies, never had been vaccinated. Both died, after much terrible suffering. The most common excuse I hear for people not vaccinating is that "my dog doesn't go anywhere". Neither did these puppies, but they still got one of the most virulent strains of Parvo.  Parvovirus can remain on surfaces or in grass or dirt for up to 2 years. We have kennels that we only put dogs with Parvo in, despite our fanatic bleaching and disinfecting. This is why I don't take unvaccinated dogs to dog friendly places, and why my work shoes are only worn at work.
No matter what your view on vaccinating (and there are some anti-vaccine advocates I do agree with), when you can prevent needless suffering and death with a proven inexpensive vaccine, why aren't more people doing it? These vaccines are readily available, in most states you can purchase them over the counter or from a catalog and do them yourself. In the case of something like Parvo, there really isn't a reason not to.

Another PSA

This morning I get to work, ready for another Saturday shot clinic. It's going to be a busy one; reminder cards went out and I've got medicals coming in before the onslaught of shot clinic clients. I knew I was going to have a mess to clean up, since we had a dog with Parvo since Thursday. So I was prepared, or so I thought.
I opened the door to carnage that looked like a CSI set, except it wasn't all blood. I didn't think the dog could possibly be alive, but he was.
This dog was not the friendly type, but there was no way I could leave him in that mess for another hour until help showed up. Since we use racks in the cages the dog was at least not laying in his own mess, so I got him in a clean cage and set to work cleaning up. It took lots of bleach, and I also had to disinfect myself since I would be working for healthy animals that day. I've got a pretty strong stomach, but the mess and smell in there made me want to hurl.

For the want of a few vaccines, this family is going to have a vet bill more than ten times the cost of the shots, whether the dog survives or not.
Does vaccinating guarantee the dog won't get the virus? No, but it sure puts the odds in the dog's favor and increases the survival rate should the dog contract the virus. Although Parvo most commonly affects puppies, adult dogs still can get it, so a little extra insurance by way of a vaccine is a good thing.