Canine distemper is a serious and often fatal viral disease of dogs and wild carnivores, causing severe neurological and systemic suffering that vaccination makes almost entirely preventable.
Canine distemper causes profound suffering - infected dogs and wild animals experience weeks of systemic illness followed by progressive neurological deterioration. For domestic dogs, this is entirely preventable through vaccination. For wild carnivores, domestic dog vaccination reduces the reservoir of infection that spills into wild populations. The anti-vaccine movement poses a direct welfare threat by allowing preventable disease to re-establish. Veterinary communication about the welfare case for vaccination, as well as the protection it affords to wildlife, is an important advocacy issue.