Months ago there was a terrible outbreak of distemper in the occupied area of our island and we all knew (and feared) what that meant…dogs cross every day across the border and we knew it was just a matter of time for the disease to appear on the Greek side too.
Unfortunately distemper is now here and already did his first victims !!
6 of our beloved dogs from the shelter got infected with this terrible disease: SUZIE, LARIS, LUKE, EKON, CHESNEY and KING. Distemper doesn’t make distinction between puppies and adults. All unvaccinated dogs (or immunodepressed dogs) are at risk. Unfortunately many times the strays we collect are positive to erlichia and/or anaplasmosis and they need to be on therapy for 40 days before we can vaccinate them.
The 6 dogs that tested positive for distemper were under observation at the vet for many days, receiving constant support and medication, kept in isolated rooms to avoid the spread of the disease that is highly contagious.
Sadly our LARIS suddenly deteriorated and when the symptoms became neurological we had no choice but to let him go. We are still devastated at the news, as Laris was a special boy that we all deeply love. He was a very scared boy at first and it took us many days to catch him from the field where he was roaming. At the shelter, he gradually learned to trust people and became a friendly boy. A lovely family was waiting to adopt him together with Suzie, but sadly distemper had different plans. Run free beautiful boy, we are sorry we could not give you the happy life we all wanted for you.
Luckily SUZIE fought the disease and survived, and was finally moved to her forever home.
LUKE was also dismissed from the vet and he is now back at the shelter in an isolated room under observation.
EKON-CHESNEY and KING are sweet puppies of only 8-10 months old. They were rescued from an awful place where they were living in terrible conditions with other 50 dogs and no human contact. They seem stable but still kept in isolation under constant observation.
As you can imagine, our bills are sky rocketing and we will need your help to face this difficult situation. Please if you could leave a small donation it would be of great help! Thanks.
