DISTEMPER IN DOGS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4326, 10 August 1937, Page 3

DISTEMPER IN DOGS.

At the annual meeting of the Gore A. and P. Society, which was held last month, an interesting letter relating to the inoculation of dogs against distemper was received from Mr W. Peirson, veterinary surgeon.

The letter stated: At the last Veterinary Conference it was decided that veterinary surgeons should inform the various interested societies that dogs may now be inoculated against distelmper. As the inoculant must be used within a certain time, ordered by cable and shipped by special condition, it would be necessary to have an agreement with the owner or owners to inoculate at least 50 dogs in a batch. The animals would need to be brought to a centre on the same day, the first iiloculation to be carried out first thing in the morning and the second in the afternoon, when the dogs would be ready for home. Complete immunity develops within two weeks, so that during this period the 'dogs should be well housed and cared for. I should be pleased to supply any further particulars if required.’’

INOCULATION EXPERIMENTS. “It is confidently hoped that it will be only a short time before the veterinary profession will he in a position to cope with distemper and prevent the .great losses caused iu the dog world by this disease,” said Mr A. M. Brodie, at the conference of the New Zeaalnd Veterinary Association at Wellington, outlining the work which had been carried out in Hawkes Bay in inoculating dogs with serum virus to prevent distemper. One difficulty had been overcome when it was discovered that virus travelling in cold storage from England retained its potency for six weeks on arrival in New Zealand.

In March this year Mr Brodie, working under the Hawke’s Bay branch of the North Island Sheep Dog Trials Association, inoculated 50 dogs. iSix of the dogs developed a mild attack of distemper, recovering in three days. One dog died. The rest were not affected.

“Of course, as in all virus diseases there is no hope of obtaining 100 per cent efficiency through inoculation, but we believe that this method, which is fairly easily applied, will give 80 per cent efficiency,” Mr Brodie concluded.