Preventative action

Distemper has been controlled in the UK through vaccinations, but David Tomlinson asks if annual boosters are still really necessary

- David Tomlinson

DISTEMPER. IT WAS a word that struck terror into the heart of any Victorian kennelman, for it was one of the most deadly of all dog diseases. Canine distemper virus (CDV) is a viral disease that affects a considerable number of mammals, though not humans. Its symptoms are many, ranging from eye inflammation to coughing, vomiting and diarrhoea. It also causes hardening of the nose and footpads, hence the alternative name of ‘hard pad’.

Through it’s tempting to write about CDV in the past tense, it’s still widespread in many parts of the world, where it’s invariably spread by dogs. It caused the near-extinction of the black-footed ferret in North America — it’s a lethal disease in domestic ferrets — and in Africa it has devastated packs of wild dogs. Thirty years ago I had the fascinating experience of following a pack of 24 wild dogs in Kenya. The following year I went back, the pack had been reduced to just three; distemper had wiped out the rest.

Before vaccination, CDV was so common in Britain that many, if not most, dogs contracted it at some stage in their life. There’s a fascinating account of how a kennel could cope with it in Hunting, written by the 8th Duke of Beaufort and Mowbray Morris, and first published in 1885. The authors regarded distemper as the curse of all kennels, and they reckoned that it was best for puppies to suffer when young, as they were then more likely to get over it.