Canine parvovirus causes one of the most severe and welfare-significant diseases in unvaccinated dogs, with high mortality and intensive suffering making prevention through vaccination a critical welfare intervention.
Dogs with parvovirus experience severe, painful haemorrhagic diarrhoea, profuse vomiting, dehydration, and systemic illness that is rapidly fatal without intensive veterinary intervention. The suffering is extreme and the duration without treatment is measured in days to death. Even with treatment, some dogs die after extended suffering. The disease is almost entirely preventable through vaccination at low cost. Vaccination hesitancy in companion animals and failure to vaccinate rescue dogs before adoption drive ongoing preventable cases causing enormous animal suffering.