Emergency care for Dogs Posted November 6, 2015 by Suchan Budha

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A significant outbreak of Ehrlichiosis Canis (E. Canis) and Toxoplasmosis was recently discovered in 6 separate emergency cases that arrived at the door of Street Dog Care (SDC). E. Canis is caused by bites from infected ticks. Birke, Chunti, Findus, Nika, Rani and Rubio all presented with symptoms, and additionally the virus outbreak happened at our centre, which was very hard on the staff and dogs in their care. It started with 2 dogs who got sick and had the same symptoms as those dogs who were brought in.

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At the beginning it was not clear what they had and staff had to run many tests and go to different Vets to find some answers. Finally SDC found out that these dogs were positive with E. Canis and some for Toxoplasmosis. SDC tested 5 dogs in total: Krishna, (tox.) Lute (tox.), Mitro (tox.), Bubble(E. canis) and Beb(E. canis). All of them were positive.

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Canis can spread very fast to other dogs by their saliva, urine, stool and blood. SDC started treatment for the sick dogs, but unfortunately for the first 2 dogs who had these symptoms, Lute and Mitro, the treatment was not effective and they passed away. unnamed

The advice from the veterinarians was to put all the dogs at SDC on the same treatment with Doxycycline, an antibiotic. This was a preventative measure to avoid that more dogs would getting sick or dying. In addition “Clindamycin” was given for some dogs: Bubble Beb and Kunsang (toxoplasmosis).In combination with that, SDC had to reinforce everybody´s liver function through administering lot of extra vitamins, live cod fish, Sylibon 140 tablets and lots and lots of extra meat, live, chicken and so on.unnamed (7)

(SDC) had to close down the centre for a couple of months, because of the high risk of infection other dogs would face while coming to them. It was a big emergency which SDC had no direct sponsoring for. All these test, antibiotics for all the dogs for 2 months, the taxi rides to the vet bills, extra food and vitamins. All this has been a huge cost and together with these other 6 emergency cases, the amount will already go far over 80.000 NRS.

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On top of that, SDC had to destroy all the blankets, feeding bowls, buckets etc that were used for the dogs who had tested positive on E. Canis. After the treatment was finished, SDC had to make sure the centre was virus free by burning the whole area using gasoline.Overall this had also a big effect on our treatment costs and the after care continues.  SDC had to get Front line, a topical insecticide, from Europe so the dogs would receive monthly preventative care. This treatment is very expensive too, however SDCwas fortunate to get a donation of this treatment from Europe.

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