Distemper in Hounds.
OPINIONS OF MASTERS OF HOUNDS.
With the view of collecting information on the subject of distemper, we addressed enquiries to the masters of a number of those hunts in whose kennels last season the disease took an unusually serious form, and also to masters whose kennels had escaped lightly. The replies received are exceedingly full and informing; and as the views of the writers cannot fail to be of interest, we propose in the following pages to set out a selection of opinions collected.
It will be convenient to give the letters in the alphabetical sequence of the writers’ names.
Mr. E. E. Barclay, master of the Puckeridge, whose kennels sustained very serious losses in 1904–5, writes:—
“Distemper is like ‘scent,’ the more one sees of it the less one knows about it. All I do know is that it is a terribly fatal disease amongst hounds of all sorts, and in my experience almost invariably seems to pick out and kill the strongest and best of one’s entry. I have kept hounds (harriers and foxhounds) now for twenty-eight years, and have always bred a good many young hounds, so necessarily have seen a good deal, in fact, far too much, of distemper, and have now come to the conclusion that physic of any sort has very little to do with getting a hound through an attack. The only thing one can do is to keep them warm; don’t let the temperature of the hospital fall below 60° during the twenty-four hours, with plenty of fresh air but no draughts, and nurse them very carefully, feeding them a little at the time and often. Keep them clean, often sponging their eyes, nose, and lips with disinfectant to keep the offensive discharge, which usually accompanies bad cases, from getting caked.
“In the form that attacks their heads with twitching and blindness, setons in the back of the neck often help. In the more fatal lung cases with pneumonia, applications of mustard to the chest and sides is the only thing that may do good, but this form often turns to double pneumonia and the patients die in a few hours. In some cases distemper seems to turn to blood poisoning, attacking especially the feet, so that the feet almost rot away.
“I have found that those hounds that have frequent fits seldom recover, and if by chance they do pull round they are generally left with ‘snatches’ or chorea. Strychnine will often help ‘snatches’ at first, but if a hound has got them badly he seldom gets much better of them, though he may recover from the distemper itself.
“I only remember two summers when we did not have distemper badly in kennel, but in both these years the young hounds went down with it badly in the middle of December and we lost several, just when they were in hard work; and of course those that recovered were of little use for that hunting season.