Category: Blog

In many cases of canine distemper, survival comes down to whether the dog has the will to live, and this comes through if the dog just keeps eating. If they keep eating, there is hope.

So here are some of the tips on getting a distemper dog to eat according to conversations salvaged from our discussion board:

[The board crashed for the last time earlier this month. You can still read the archive in the same URL here:
https://edbond.com/distemper/discussion/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=2]

‘Getting a distemper dog to eat’

‘Please use this to post strategies that worked for you in getting your distemper dog to eat. One poster recommends raw liver. Here’s what someone else recommends:

“Cook up quartered potatoes and skinless chicken breast and boil it for 1.5 hours TOGETHER. Feed small meals every 2-3 hours of 70 percent potato / 30 percent chicken. Distemper animals are nauseous and until the serum takes hold, you have to give him water and food. I use Karo syrup from the baking aisle at the supermarket — the clear one — and put a little on his tongue or roof of his mouth every few hours. It works great to quell the sick stomach and then they can eat and drink. Fluids are very important for three days or so while the serum is working. If he drinks, no need for hospital. If he doesn’t and they can’t be syringed in, he will need to be in the hospital.”

What else has worked?’

Re: Getting a distemper dog to eat’, ‘

Reposting from Facebook: Jennifer Randolph Graddy

I purchased Boar’s Head turkey from the deli and it is all she would eat for two weeks. Then I started mixing in some Prescription Diet A/D with the turkey. Also used Karo syrup. When she was really sick I blended the turkey and A/D together and used a syringe.

Suzanna Urszuly

what worked on our puppy was chicken, chicken soup and puppy gold ( a very good supplement). She is doing amazing now! 🙂 —

‘Re: Getting a distemper dog to eat’,

‘Hi, I recently rescued two puppies who were just diagnosed wit distemper. I am a Biology major on the Pre-Veterinary track and work at an animal clinic. I have been so fortunate to have the support of my staff in caring for the puppies. There were a few days where they were not eating very well so I was forced to give them fluids. Other than that I have had great success in getting the dogs to eat! You have to try different things until you find the one thing that the animal likes. For Faith ( the female) puppy, I cook chicken in a chicken broth with vegies. I cut up the chicken and mix it in with rice and I pour some of the broth over the mixture. She loves it. Make sure not to season the chicken. I heat up her food before giving it to her. WHen the food is warm the smell is more potent. For Gray (male puppy) I give him Nutro Max lab meal kibble and I pour broth over the kibble. I make it like a soup. I warm up the broth before pouring it over the kibble. I hand feed both of them and at times it is a pain but it gets the job done. To give Faith her meds I make her a meatball of prescription diet r/d. She really loves it. Gray does not take his meds easily, but I recently tried giving him his pills in cottage cheese and he really loved it. However, the cottage cheese spoils quickly. Hope I helped

Jackie’

‘Re: Getting a distemper dog to eat’,

‘I just gave warm milk and warm water to my miniature pinscher, back when she got distemper, I almost had no hope but I was patient and she survived a couple of days after her suffering.

Is it recommended to give them milk if there are no other alternatives?’,

‘Re: Getting a distemper dog to eat’, ‘

Answer from Dr. Sears about milk: “Ed,There is NO food of any kind at this time known to help or control any virus disease much less Distemper. In fact at t his time NO oral medication that has been developed yet.”

‘Re: Getting a distemper dog to eat’,

‘Here ‘s some more advice from Vickie Novak:

“Folks are doing what they can out of the trying to save their babies so if you get any emails of folks doing syringe feeds ask them to stop especially if dogs has gone neuro the tongue does not work well with the jaw tremors. they are better to have vet show them sub q fluids and paste food in gums and let dog lick off on own. “‘

‘Re: Getting a distemper dog to eat’,

‘It is not bad to give the dog milk, but it just doesn ‘t do anything against the disease.’,

Re: Getting a distemper dog to eat’,

‘Patton,

1 and 3 months condition before,where he had this in two weeks time (didnt know he has already distemper) : hard to get on his feet,no balance, had weight loss, eye had discharge, hardened nose after i gave patton : 1.) lots of water with high dosage of sugar, (use syringe if he cannot drink on its own) every month 2.) canned tuna(vit a) mixed with rice together with its fish oil 3.) canned dog food w/liver 4.) human infants milk for 1-6 month 5.) meds prescribed by vets (vit c, antibiotics, etc. support meds) 6.) some short walking exercise every morning, since sunlight in the morning is the healthiest on his 3rd week: he was able to cope up with his condition, get his strength back today is his 4th week : we decide to undergo a spinal tap because hes nervous system is affected, i tried it and i hope hes gonna do better and gain his full strength back, and do activities like running and jumping’

‘Re: Getting a distemper dog to eat’, ‘I think all of the advice posted about getting a distemper dog to eat is good. I would just like to add that our dog Bella would eat baby food when she would eat nothing else. Our vet used it and she loved it. When she would go back to not eating I would syringe it and she tolerated it. When they are not eating or drinking it ‘s reallly important to see the vet often to let them check for dehydration. Exercise does stimulate their appetite and warming the food does help make it more appetizing too. other foods that haven ‘t been mentioned are cooked eggs and meat. Our vet gave us chewable vitamins to put in the food. They were easy to crumble.’

‘More tips on getting distemper dog to eat’

‘Sharing some of the best suggestions from our Facebook page on how to get a distemper dog to eat.

baby food – chicken, turkey tablespoon of corn syrup in 8 ounces of drinking water Darwin ‘s Raw diet
“soaking their food in warm chicken broth (homemade) and making a warm mash. Also adding baby food helped. ”
MaKenna Marie Arrigo •
“When Bella wouldn ‘t eat Dr. H. called a burger place he knew and asked them to cook ground beef very rare. He said the aroma and warmth of the food helps. He also got scrambled eggs and boiled rice. He had me add water to the baby food and syringe feed her every 2-3 hours through the night. He had me walk her several times a day to build strength, get sunshine and fresh air and to make her hungry. I didn ‘t realize that exercise would make her hungry but it did. “He also believes( as I ‘m sure we all agree) that being snuggled and loved by their human is so important to recovery. In his clinic he wants the owners to be with their dogs/cats the whole time- especially when waking up from a procedure and during recovery. They need to have reason to get better. ” Elizabeth Nelson

“Nutri-plus gel helps their appetite a lot. chicken+celery+carrots boiled together, served warm. mixing wet food with warm water helps too. ”
Lim Wen Yih
“I also used puppy formula (GMC)!that is high in calories and worked well. ”
Carrie Reed

“We ‘ve had some luck adding wheat germ and fish oil to a mix of high protein wet and raw puppy food. Alternating pedialyte and water. ”
Anna Burgess

NOTE: Do not force feed your dog because this can cause choking. At most, try pasting the food onto the teeth and gums and let the dog lick the food off from there.’

Six years after filming this video, the goal remains the same.

All we have asked is for the scientific community to at least give these treatments a look. Test them out to your satisfaction and see if they could work. All it takes is the right person in the right place to get it rolling.

I am not a scientist or a vet, so I cannot prove it for you. But after working on this as a volunteer and compiling information from dog owners, vets and rescue groups for the past 8 years, I believe it is worth a full scientific investigation.

So, a dog owner I’ve corresponded with sent me this link and asked me to respond:

http://avetsguidetolife.blogspot.com/2015/01/ndv-to-treat-canine-distemperhogwash-or.html

I’d encourage you to read the post. I like Dr. Chris Bern because he is a skeptic. I consider myself a skeptic myself. I spent 25 years in journalism and that’s pretty much our stance with everything. If you want me to believe something, you have to show me yourself. Unlike others who might dismiss a cure for distemper out of hand, Dr. Bern actually took the time to read our report about the effectiveness of NDV. So, that’s how skeptics should work. But I think he missed some key points.

Let me just say right off, that I absolutely respect any vet who does not want to use an unpublished treatment. And if you are not interested in hearing about how Dr. Alson Sears found a cure for canine distemper, I will respect that and leave you alone. However, other vets who were probably tired of routinely euthanizing distemper dogs gave the treatments a try and wrote back to tell me how it went.

I compiled those numbers into that report. At no point do I call this a scientific study. However, I did refer to the 2003 study by Dr. Kim Hee-Young in Korea. But at no point do I claim to be a scientist, a doctor or a veterinarian. At no point do I claim to have proven there is a cure for canine distemper. As I say in the report, “We do not claim here that we have proven this cure, but we consider these treatments to be at least encouraging and worth further investigation.”

I am not a scientist, but I am a former journalist, and I can compile information and tell you the facts I have found. In 1997, my dog Galen was dying of distemper. My sister took him to see Dr. Alson Sears, who treated him. Galen came back to us two days later happy and healthy. Now, I know that one incident is not enough to prove a cure. I know I don’t have the test reports and other specifics of the case to further verify that one case. At the time, I was not planning on campaigning for this cause. But as far as I was concerned, my dog’s life had been saved.

I put Galen’s story up on my website, edbond.com, but was determined to not get further involved than that. People found out about Dr. Sears. Some were able to get to his clinic and some wrote back to me to say their dog had been saved from distemper too. “That’s nice,” I thought to myself.

The turning point came in 2008, after Dr. Sears had been retired for a couple of years. A woman in Romania contacted me and asked if her vet could use the protocols from Dr. Sears, which I had posted to the website. “Sure,” I said. I forgot all about that until 4 months later when she contacted me through Facebook to say her vet had used the serum to save at least 5 dogs at that point.

That was when the light bulb went on. I may not be a scientist, but I remember enough from college biology class to know that scientific results need to be repeatable by other scientists. A veterinarian from the other side of the world had taken Dr. Sears’ protocol off my website, followed them and had the same results.

This was significant to me. But at the time I was just a copy editor for a newspaper in Upstate New York. Science writers who I contacted wouldn’t look at it because it was unpublished. Vet schools wouldn’t give me the time of day. But as an individual person, I still had the power of speech and I could harness the then-emerging power of social media. I pushed it out into the world everywhere I could. I asked dog owners to record and videotape their dogs before and after treatment and tell me their stories. I asked vets to send me updates on how the treatments went for them.  This all became the reports, videos and stories that fill the Kind Hearts In Action website.

At least 23 veterinarians around the world reported to me that they could repeat Dr. Sears’ work.

And yes, none of this is scientific. This is all anecdotal. The whole point of all of this was to get the attention of those in the scientific community and get someone to realize this would be worth a study. I believe that if this could be put to the test — especially in treating the early stages of distemper — it would show that the lives of dogs could be saved.

At the very least, I believe the veterinary community should end the routine euthanization of distemper dogs. Yes, in many cases, the neurologic problems are too severe to overcome and euthanization is the kindest thing you can do. But even if you don’t believe NDV is saving these dogs, I can still point to hundreds of examples of distemper dogs where it was definitely worth the effort to try. That is the point of our We Love #DistemperDogs campaign.  Slideshow.

I have a book on canine distemper from the 1920s. That book tells the story of veterinarians who at the time were desperate to defeat canine distemper. They were either trying to find a cure or find a vaccine.

They eventually found a vaccine. So they forgot about finding a cure. My assumption is that with the vaccine, the veterinarians at the time considered a cure unnecessary because the vaccine would control the disease. But distemper is very different from the small pox vaccine. Small pox could be eliminated from the world because it only affected one population, humans. Distemper can exist in other canids and it keeps spreading. New cases, year after year. I get emails from all over the world telling me how devastating a problem it is.

So, as important the vaccine is — yes, always get your dog vaccinated — it has only partially defeated distemper. An effective treatment is needed.

However, somehow the narrative changed from when the vaccine was developed in 1950. Rather than, “a cure is not needed.” It became “a cure for canine distemper is impossible.”

Yes, it is a bold claim that a cure for canine distemper is possible. Yes, it is a bold claim that there is some unknown process caused by NDV that can defeat the distemper virus. But you just sitting there saying it’s bold doesn’t prove that it is not there. You won’t know if it is there unless you check it out for yourself. That’s what a true skeptic would do.

Alas, I cannot prove it to you. I am not a scientist. I am, after all, still just an ordinary guy running websites and answering email. I do not have the money, resources, connections and experience to run a proper study on this. But with all due respect, I know this:

Veterinarians around the world have patients that are sick and will die.

Somebody should do should do something about it.

Ed Bond

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P.S. As to the implication that this is snake oil and I am just a P.T. Barnum looking to con people, I have to say that as a newspaper reporter, I once chased a con artist out of town. Con artists usually keep changing their story. They want the money as soon as possible. They don’t stick around very long to answer questions.

Kind Hearts In Action is a 501c3 non-profit. We have been active with this status since 2009. You can look it up. We never require any money for the help we offer. Donations are gratefully accepted, but I would never twist anyone’s arm for money. I would never ask for money from someone who is desperate and in the middle of crisis. Frankly, if we get enough to keep the website and social media going, I’m happy. If people share their stories and tell others about what is happening here, all the better.

I’ve been doing this for about 7 years now. I do this for no pay, and every morning when I get to my computer there are more emails from people asking for help. But it is because I also get emails from people thanking me for helping to save their dogs that I keep doing this. If there had been no successes, I would not have done this for very long.

Check out our other stories here:

https://www.kindheartsinaction.com/archives/category/canine-distemper/saved-dogs

Distemper dogs treated with NDV

 

 

 

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I first heard about Nilla late on a Friday night in May 2012.

I must admit, even for me, the situation looked bleak.

This beloved border collie belonged to the son of a pastor/farmer in South Dakota. She was already deep into the neurologic stage of distemper, crippled and blind. They were also thousands of miles from the any of the vets who were using the Newcastle Disease Vaccine treatments. Also, it was the beginning of the weekend. Who would be open?

But that did not deter Clark Audiss. With unbridled determination and a deep faith, Clark made phone calls and drove far and wide until he found a source of NDV and a place willing to perform the NDV spinal tap. Nilla was treated at Kansas State Vet School and very quickly recovered her sight. Over the next few months, she began to crawl, to walk, to run and even jump over obstacles. Her case is what inspired the current study of the NDV spinal tap at Kansas State Vet School.

Nilla has been living a good life with the Audiss family. She has occasional bouts of seizures brought on by changes in the weather, but anti-seizure medication helps keep that under control.

However, the family is moving and cannot bring Nilla along. None of the rental opportunities in their new town allow pets.

She needs a home, somewhere with people who will love her and understand her key role in the campaign to save dogs from distemper.  We don’t want to lose track of Nilla. Kansas State would not want to lose track of her either. When she dies, the school would want to study her brain.

If you would like to give Nilla a new home, you can contact Clark Audiss. His contact information is below.

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Here is an email from Clark

Hello Ed,

I enjoyed visiting with you yesterday and catching up on the progress made in studying the NDV treatment.  As I mentioned, we have accepted a new position as pastor of a small church and it appears we will be in a rent situation.  Because it is a small town, rent opportunities are very limited and all we have seen currently say “no pets”.  Nilla’s amazing story has touched so many people and we cannot just let her go without knowing she is in a loving home and being well cared for.  I am tearing up as I type these words…, “She is family”!  Thank you for all you have done for Nilla and thank you for offering to help find her a good home.  Jen and I are praying for the day when all the studies and all the research verify what we already know….there is hope and there is a cure!

Sincerely,

Clark & Jennifer Audiss

Clark A. Audiss

Evangelism & Discipleship Pastor

Calvary Church

1210 S. Hwy 15, PO Box 549

Milbank, SD 57252

(605)208-1019

calvarychurchmilbank.com

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UPDATE: 12/19/2015

Good morning Ed,

We have found a home for Nilla!  She will be staying here in SD with a friend of my wife’s sister.  Thanks for all your help (:

Blessings,

Clark