How To Save Money On Costly Parvo Treatments - Part 1

Parvo (more formally known as Canine Parvovirus) is devastating, not only emotionally (words simply cannot describe how it feels to see your beloved dog healthy one moment, and incredibly sick the next, with vomit and foul-smelling, blood-filled diarrhea everywhere), but also financially.

As soon as you notice your dog is sick, the vet's costs that are typically associated with Parvo treatment just keep mounting.

To start with, you'll probably face bills of $25 to $50 for each office visit, and there will usually be more than one.

Next, your vet will more than likely want to do take a stool sample for an instant, in-clinic test, or a blood sample to send away for a full work-up, or even both. These will cost you anywhere between $25 and $100, depending on the type of test. (And note that these tests may not even be accurate - with the latest 2c strain, a dog that has Parvo may still test negative.)

If it turns out your dog actually has Parvo, then you can expect to pay anywhere from $500 to over $10,000, per dog. These costs include items such as overnight stays ($50 a night), blood transfusions ($200 a time), medications ($100 - $200), etc. (And your vet will only give your dog a 50% - 80% chance of surviving Parvo.)

Lastly, if the vet is unable to treat your dog successfully, you will frequently be presented with the option every pet owner dreads - the decision to have your dog put down, which will cost you up to $300.

So, all together, your vet's bill for Parvo treatment will be between $850 and $10,450 - and that's just for a single dog. (When one of your dogs is infected with Parvo, the chances of any others on the same property contracting the virus are very high, and as many people actually own two or more dogs, you can probably double these figures, at least.)

To put this in perspective, the average cost of owning a dog over its expected life span of 11 years is about $13,550, so you could spend up to 77% (i.e. three quarters) of this amount treating him for a single illness over a period of a week or so.

But, there are other options - you can both prevent Parvo and treat Parvo using safe, chemical-free products such as Parvaid, Vibactra Plus and Life Cell Support for a fraction of the cost of taking your dog to the vet, and with a much higher chance of your dog surviving the Parvo virus (on average, 90% or better).

Parvo prevention usually starts when your dog is just a puppy, in the form of vaccinations.

The whole topic of Parvo vaccinations, and vaccinations in general, is a hot topic at the moment, and there are, of course, many advantages and disadvantages.

But perhaps the most serious downside, where Parvo is concerned, is that most current vaccines (excluding Continuum and PROGARD, which are made by Intervet) are ineffective against the latest 2c strain of this horrific virus.

You therefore need other solutions, because you cannot assume that your dog is safe just because you've had him vaccinated. Since early 2007, there have been many stories in the media of fully-vaccinated dogs, including puppies and adults, being infected by and dying from Parvo.

If you want to find out what these other measures are, you'll need to look out for Part 2 of this article!