In early March 2020, Braj Animal Care received a call from a concerned citizen who said one of the puppies who lived in the alleyway outside his house was suffering from parvo. Parvo is a disease that can affect dogs of any age but it is particularly prevalent in puppies who have just stopped drinking their mothers’ milk. This is because the milk that comes from their mothers contains antibodies that protect puppies from contracting parvo so once they start weaning, unvaccinated puppies are very susceptible to this disease.
Braj Animal Care responded to the call but when they got there, they discovered that there were actually seven puppies, all suffering from parvo. It’s not often that puppies living on the street survive parvo, and calculating that their treatment would require all our manpower and more resources than we had, our team contemplated whether or not they should pursue medical aid for the puppies. But somehow they found themselves unable to say no.
It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that each of the seven puppies were in various stages of death and treating them on the street would be extremely challenging. We took them to the veterinary college in the nearby city, where we were advised that the puppies would each need daily treatment via IV. Ideally, the puppies should have the drips twice a day, but the veterinary college simply didn’t have enough staff present to do this for all seven puppies. Thus, we compromised by having them receive drips once a day instead. Due to there being so many puppies, the treatment took 3-4 hours each day, during which our volunteers stayed by their side.
When we initially took the puppies to the medical hospital, we used a small rental car to transport them in. Due to their sickness, the puppies were vomiting a lot and having profuse loose motions. The smell in the car was truly awful, although we know the journey must have been far worse for them than it was for us. Luckily, after the first day, staff from the veterinary college agreed to make the trip daily to treat the puppies in Vrindavan.
Still, the problem we faced was that, as we don’t have a permanent shelter in which to treat our animals, we were using an empty lot that was far from ideal and only a temporary solution. Furthermore, when we were able to locate the owner of the lot and offer to rent it as a semi-permanent clinic space, the owner did not agree and even took steps to remove us from the area. Although the puppies continued to receive their IV treatment, one by one they started to die.
As the number of remaining puppies became fewer, staff from the veterinary college were able to treat them twice a day as prescribed. In the end, only one puppy managed to recover from parvo, but unfortunately, with the enclosure door removed by the owner of the empty lot, he was attacked by a territorial female dog and he too lost his life.
The story of the seven puppies with parvo really highlights our lack of resources, especially a shelter. We direly need a shelter in which to treat our animals, an ambulance to properly transport them, and veterinary staff of our own.