Watching a dog in the advanced stages of the disease was scary to watch. The poor thing was twitching uncontrollably. And just a few days before that his leg was patched up and he had been adopted by an old guy. Must've been tough for him to leave the dog at the vet's office to be put down…

It sucks that the only “cure” for the disease is to simply put the poor animal to sleep. But after seeing what the disease can do to the animal, I'm sure I'd put the dog out of its misery too.

I don't suppose other pets also catch this disease?

Most diseases are in fact terrible, and many people are more affected by an animal in distress than a human. People who willingly watch shows about horrible ways animals might die have something wrong with them. T_T Fortunately there is a vaccine for distemper and most responsible pet owners keep up on vaccines. (If you don't want to do that kind of stuff, you don't deserve a pet.)

I don't want to know about any other horrible details about the way poor doggies might die, but a quick peek at the wikipedia page tells me that distemper can affect lots of animals such as fettets and cats.

skoolmunkee
Fortunately there is a vaccine for distemper and most responsible pet owners keep up on vaccines. (If you don't want to do that kind of stuff, you don't deserve a pet.)

I totally agree.

Most of the horrible things that dogs and cats commonly suffer and die from (the always fatal things like rabies and distemper and the nearly always fatal things like heartworm and parvo) can be easily prevented with vaccines. As tragic as an animal's suffering is to its owners, I lack sympathy with owners that didn't get their animals vaccinated (but still feel for the animals). – Of course, I do sympathize when people adopt a stray that already has the condition, and it's simply too late.

skoolmunkee
shows about horrible ways animals might die

I think he was watching one of the Animal Cops shows. They usually have happy endings for the animals (though some aren't as fortunate), and you get to see neglectful owners get arrested. (They aren't very graphic in terms of injury/illness, as the show focuses on rescues and justice.)

It was one of those shows. They found the dog with a broken leg next to the road and took it in to be treated. He was adopted a short time later, but was brought in when that distemper took hold. It was sad to watch, though. Never seen a dog in that state. I don't think its former owners ever got the vaccines it needed. I've seen humans in that state though, but that was an epilepsy attack.

On a similar note my doggie caught parvo a while back, before i always had the notion ‘there’s no way i could leave my pet to die in a cold vets office and people who do that don't love their pets' but seeing her laying there on the ground, not an ounce of her energy left with no will to live i almost thought it was the humane thing to do.

But luckily we didn't have the money to take her to the vet at the time(operation is like 800$ and we just got through paying my college) so i force fed her water/electrolytes/beef broth through a turkey baster– and lots of love and bawfests. Now she's lost 30lb's and is happier than i've seen her in years, it may sound corny but i'm pretty sure the love is what made her not give up.

So i'm glad i didn't take her into the vet where she wouldn't receive the love, even if i spent 3 entire days nonstop bleaching everything she touched and raking up her feces and i had to throw out my favorite gloves i miss them they were actually animal bite proof gloves dog catchers use and excellent for touching things i wouldn't normally touch with my bare hands because said things might have spiders on them and i hate spiders they should die.

lol run-on… my English teacher would have a stroke.

Skullbie
my English teacher would have a stroke.

What a dirty man. :)
—
I know what you meant, juts funnier this way.

Animal diseases are hard to deal with. Cancer is the worst. My cats tend to die from very old age diseases. No cure for old age. :(

As bad as some diseases are, I'd almost my dog rather have them instead of something else, so she could die peacefully being put down. My last dog I had got hit by a truck when she escaped from our backyard and took off across a 6 lane highway. I'd much rather it be in a way I can actually do something about the pain for an animal than to just watch them die horribly painfully.

They should make a pain duller for animals that's available to the public, like a liquid in a little dropper to give them

Skullbie
They should make a pain duller for animals that's available to the public, like a liquid in a little dropper to give them

There's this stuff called “Metacam”. A few drops of that eases the pain.

I'm pretty sure you need a prescription for Metacam, which is just a liquid (and flavored) version of an arthritis pain reliever for humans.

I think having over the counter animal pain relievers would be bad… if your animal is in pain, they should see a vet. As humans we know when we just need a tylenol, but I can imagine all kinds of people who will decide ‘I’ll just give her a dog tylenol, then she'll feel better' instead of a vet trip. Only for the dog to die of something terrible that would have been caught otherwise. Or overdoses because ‘the instructions don’t apply to my dog.'

Yeah… prescriptions are needed to a point. Of course after a while you learn what's what and just have a handle on what the problem is, in those cases it helps to have the right meds on hand.

-Metacam is also ok for a more general pain relief as well as just the arthritis stuff, because of how it works. With my cats it was useful to have a bit around because they were so old and infirm… One died and her daughter died a year later. The daughter suffered from bad arthritis so she'd been on it long term. In the end she was suffering from cancerous growths around the back of her brain. The vet had said that extra drops of the metacam would ease things for her, and it did.

Generally though, it does help to have some prescription stuff like antibiotics on hand. As long as you know the dosage for the weight of the animal, but that's not too hard. With tomcats it's something you REALLY need- all the fights and stupid things they do. Going to the vet can be very difficult, and very traumatic for the animal, it's not something you want to do after every minor incident. And small injuries (from another cat) can lead to severe consequences.
So I always take injuries seriously: bathing the wounds etc.

Having a good relationship with your local very is the best thing. if they understand you and your situation and the animal they can take good care of you. :)

ozoneocean
Having a good relationship with your local very is the best thing. if they understand you and your situation and the animal they can take good care of you. :)

Ensuring you need to go to the vet to get the antibiotics, painkiller, etc in the first place means that at least your vet knows that your animal is in need of some kind of care and if they need to see the animal. I agree that you don't need to see the vet for everything, and that it's handy to keep some things around. I just wouldn't want that stuff to be available without some vet intervention because at that point, everyone starts to think ‘well I just don’t need a vet, I know as good as them' and people ARE morons when it comes to medicine and dosages. If it's fine with your vet to keep some of that stuff on hand, then it's because they know you're not going to abuse the privilege so to speak.

Antibiotics do expire so keep an eye on that. :] Also they're not effective unless you give them their full run…

Could be worse actually. My dad is a semi-retired vet and he has gave me the antibiotics for dogs once. (Some medicines only differ from humans in dosage.)

Same could be said for vets with doctors in your case skool.

But back to the original topic. One of the best preventative measures aside from vaccinations of your pets is to keep them indoors (unless they have to do their business). That doesn't work for all animals but it significantly reduces chances of communicable diseases like rabies and heart worms.