Sporting Dogs: Their Points and Management in Health and Disease

by Frank Townend Barton

DISTEMPER

This malady is only too well known amongst owners and breeders of sporting dogs, and to its almost constant presence in certain kennels the rearing of puppies is seriously handicapped. It is readily communicable from one dog to another—more particularly the young—either by direct or indirect means.

Some kennels are singularly exempt from its presence, whereas others are hardly ever without it.

In the latter case, the disease obviously exists upon the premises, measures for its extinction having been inadequately carried out.

One would hardly credit the multifarious channels through which this canine scourge can be propagated.

Feeding utensils, benches, the hands and clothing of attendants, hampers, collars and chains, bedding, water vessels, by contact of the diseased and healthy, and possibly by wind carrying the dessicated discharges, are all liable to become active agents for the production of the malady.

So varied is distemper in its method of attack, that the most expert professional may ignore its existence. Previous to the development of the symptoms, there is the so-called period of incubation, i.e., the time during which the germs are, as it were, dormant, though in reality they are maturing, the advent of their maturation being the development of the specific lesions designated distemper. By far the commonest manifestation of this horrible canine scourge is that in connection with the mucous membranes lining the eyelids, and upper air passages.

Possibly these are the chief portals for the entrance of the germs, and if the specific poison would only confine its ravages to these regions, the ultimate results would be of a much less serious nature.

No amount of good government will confine the assaults of the germs to positions so readily accessible to amelioration by medicinal applications, bronchial and pneumonic complications being common results, or what is, equally severe, bowels and brain lesions supervene, proving an additional source of depleting an already weakened economy. Masters of Foxhounds and proprietors of other dogs, are, we fear, only too well acquainted with the truth of this statement. The usual period of incubation is from four to fourteen days, and this should be borne in mind, so that any puppies that have been in contact with the disease may be isolated, and their temperatures taken for the next two or three weeks night and morning. The normal temperature is 101° Fahr. or a trifle over; therefore, if the mercury rises above 102° Fahr. in the morning—more particularly so—this is sufficient to warrant the animal's separation from the rest of the puppies.