Hi all

I am wondering if I should have my girl vaccinated against Canine Herpes as I have become somewhat concerned after talking to her breeder this evening. I'll keep this as short as possible. Ok in my girls litter there were 8 puppies all healthy, however in my girls Mums next litter only 2 puppies survived (6 lost after birth). My girls full sister (previous mating) has just whelped 7 puppies all born alive, but only 2 survivors, the rest of the puppies just seemed to fade. I'm worried now that there is a possible hereditary link and that my girl carries it. I understand from reading up on it that it is now too late to vaccinate my girl against it. It has never been confirmed as the Canine Herpes Virus. The vet and I have discussed antibiotics the week before she is due to whelp but nothing else. I'll go and have a chat with my vet and see what he says, but I'm not sure how "up" on this topic he is. I know some of you have had experience with this and just wondered what you thought.

It certainly wouldn't have done any harm to vaccinate her even if it isn't CHV,    Your vet would probably have to order in the vacine,  the first injection should be done either just before or as soon after the first mating as possible, normally I think up to 10 hours after mating, second injection has to be done 2 weeks before whelping is due.

Fading puppy is being linked to CHV .  Anti-biotics won't really help if it is CHV but it will help with any other infection which could be lurking!

I expect you can read up more on the internet than your vet will actually know, I know when we thought our girl had CHV we were actually telling her which sites to look at to read up on it!   Thankfully she didn't have CHV and went on to have a healthy litter of 8 pups before Christmas, but our vet now thinks it was an infection that took over and killed the litter back in the summer!

so it is too late to vaccinate against Canine Herpes, have you had your bitch swabbed to see if she is carrying the virus? I would recommend talking to your vet and if he deems it suitable getting him to come out to you and swab your bitch to see if she may be a carrier.  It does not work as straight forward as parent/sibling when it comes to inheriting a congenital problem (which is what I assume you are referring to) so I would suggest  giving your bitch garlic and honey as natural antibiotics before jumping to the conclusion that she has it without further testing.  One point to note is if she does test positive you should inform the owner of the stud dog.

Also our vet told us if one of our girls has the CHV virus then it's likely the rest do too! and it's not a virus that can be cured with anti-biotics, only the symptoms can treated.

There is a blood test your vet can do, quite expensive but worth it to know one way or the other for certain.

Good luck!

I'll speak to my vet asap and see what he comes up with. There is a good possibility that this isn't the problem, but after reading some of the posts on here and doing some research on the topic I just wonder. I would think if it was CHV the litter my girl was born in would have suffered too, but none of them had any problems in this regard. 

What are the simptoms of this?

Hi all

Quick update on the CHV. My girls test results came back yesterday and we have been given the all clear :) The lab tested for a few different things apparently and all tests came back negative. Whew huge weight off my mind. Now I just have the weight of the impending babies on my mind :D :D

That's excellent news, my vet 'thought' my girl had CHV back in the summer when she aborted her litter on day 49, but tests confirmed she didn't too, it's a big sigh of relief isn't it!  She has since had a litter of 8 pups, sadly we lost 3, but not linked to CHV

Sorry to hear about your babies Sharon, I must say I am steeling myself just in case we have a similar situation. I have been like a cat on a hot tin roof for the past couple of weeks waiting for the test results, they did 3 tests thought to cause Fading puppy syndrome and they all came back clear. I could have kissed the vet :D So as I said its just the waiting now, hopefully it'll all be over with in a few days time as she is due to whelp on Monday. I have had a few impatient people on the waiting list phone up already to see if there is going to be a puppy for them. I don't think there will be one for everybody though as she isn't huge and the waiting list keeps getting longer.

I'm sure she'll be fine, I have cocker spaniels and my girl was absolutely HUGE, pups all weighed around 11ozs each, sadly as mum had to have a c-section for some reason her milk never came in.  My vet advised against bottle feeding, she told me if the pups keep sucking her milk will come in............it never did and we lost 3 pups very quickly.  Next time I'll do what I feel is right...but I don't think I'll breed from her again though, it was a very stressful year for us both!

I successfully hand reared 5 pups, starting off 2ml of Welpi every 2 hours, both day and night, it was a very long 4 weeks!!

Good luck with your litter, excellent news on her results too!

Hi

I had the same probs with my old vet, my bitch was clearly having trouble in labour so in the end he agreed to do c-sec (which he did agree afterwards that had only just been done in time !!!) But 5 healthy puppies delivered, mum wasn't too good after and her milk didn't come in, although we put the puppies with her for the first 24 hours.  Spoke to the vet and said that i thought I was going to have to hand feed them, and he said no leave them they will bring her milk in, So I left them for another 24 hours but they were really starting to look poorly.  So I ignored him and hand reared them.  4 of them left me at 8 weeks looking stunning and the other one was so stunning I kept and he got his JW at 15 months.  I am so pleased I didn't listen to my vet, I am sure I would have lost them all if I had left them.  They aren't always right.