Brucellosis or CHV? Deadly Diseases for Puppies

Dr. Marty Greer joins host Laura Reeves for a Veterinary Voice topic that can be devastating for breeders and deadly for puppies. Brucellosis and CHV (Canine Herpes Virus) can both decimate a litter.

“If you lose even a single puppy in a litter, have testing done on that puppy,” Greer said. “Have a necropsy done of some form at your vet clinic or at a referral center or at a reference lab, so that you find out what happened because you can't learn from it if you bury your mistakes. You can't learn anything and you can't move your breeding program forward until you know what happened.

“There is no diagnosis of fadubg puppy syndrome. So if your vet says that's what you have, you need to find another vet or dig a little harder with the one you're working with. Because you need to find out what happened.

“Brucellosis hasn't gone away. There's no vaccine for it. So yes, you can have anything from a normal looking bitch and a normal looking stud dog to a stud dog that has inflamed testicles. You can see normal adult dogs develop brucellosis symptoms.

“These can be uveitis, which is inflammation of the eye. They can be disco spondylitis, which is inflammation of a disc. So if you go in for a diagnosis at your vet clinic and you have certain symptoms, even in a normal dog that isn't a breeding dog they may test for brucellosis because it can cause other diseases.

“In bitches we can see anything from apparent infertility where she looks like she didn't conceive but she actually conceived and lost the litter, to puppies that are born weak that died shortly thereafter, puppies that are born normal and die afterwards, bitches that have infertility. It is shared through venereal spread, which is male to female breeding, but it can be spread through any body fluid. So urine, placentas, all those things.

“Brucellosis survives freezing semen, so it doesn't even get killed at that -300° that we see semen frozen at. So you need to be aware that when we say you should test for brucellosis, we’re not joking around. You should test for brucellosis.”

Listen in for more information. Learn more about USDA approved brucellosis testing HERE.