The Deadly Adenovirus and Klebsiella pneumoniae 

by Donna Dick

This is going to be VERY long...but if you are a breeder, you need to take time to read this article. This knowledge could very well end up saving your entire litter someday. Lord how I wish I knew then what I had to learn the hard way.

My Mastiff bitch, Baby, delivered a litter of 14 pups on July 23. All pups survived and were doing well. Within 24 hours I lost a puppy. She was perfectly healthy in every way. She had just nursed and was doing fine, but the very next minute she was dead. I was sitting "in" the whelping box feeding other pups when she died. No symptoms, she just died.

We performed a necropsy and the vet said he thought the dam had laid on her because her lungs looked bruised. I accepted this, though could not understand how it could have happened. A friend had come to help with the whelping. She and I never took our eyes off of the whelping box. But with 14 pups, ok, maybe we miss counted the pups, it could've happened. All other pups were doing great, eating normally, and thriving. The only symptoms we ever saw at all was that at times they would aspirate as they nursed, even when they nursed on the dam.

When the pups were 3 weeks of age I notice one pup just sitting up and hanging his head. He would not lie down. When I checked him he seemed ok. He nursed, just would not lie down. He appeared to have difficulty breathing when picked up. Within 4 hours he was in death gasp.

We rushed him to the vet and took x-rays. The vet said it appeared as if his lungs were crushed. The dam must have laid on him because the X-rays showed bruised and bleeding lungs. The pup was put on antibiotics and I was told to watch him.

That evening, approximately 7:00 PM, another pup came down with similar symptoms. Just sitting up and hanging his head. I knew then we were looking at something that was about to go through the whole litter unless we did something NOW! I called the vet and he started the whole litter on antibiotics.

The next morning the first pup died. The second was in serious trouble, and I had 2 more affected pups.

I took the dead puppy in for necropsy and the others in for exam. I attended the necropsy and, indeed, the pup's lungs looked bruised. Blood had infiltrated the lungs. Not pooled like pneumonia (so it could be drawn off) but it appeared as if the capillaries were bleeding. No other organs appeared affected. They were all absolutely normal and well formed. We took a culture and sent it, and all internal organs to the State Lab. The sad thing was the results of the culture would not be back for 7-10 days and from the time the pup went symptomatic within 24 hours it was dead. This left us NO time to wait to find out what we were dealing with !!!

We started the whole litter on aggressive preventative medicine. We had NO idea what to treat them "with", so we battered them with everything veterinary science had to offer. The whole litter was put on Clavamox orally, Ampicillian via injection twice/day, Cephalexin orally, Vitamin C to boost their immune system, Vitamin K via injection to control bleeding, and Dialex G to open breathing passages.

The morning of the second day I attempted to tube feed a pup because he was too weak to eat. As I placed the tube into his throat he faded. I was positive it was placed in the esophagus not the airway. All resuscitation attempts failed. This pup was put on ice and sent off to the state lab for a complete autopsy.

Neither of the 4 vets in the clinic had a clue what this was. We suspected they got some bad formula and had been poisoned. The thing was, most of the pups had the same batch of formula but not all the pups were affected. So I sent a sample of the formula off to the state Lab for testing. To date I do not have the results from those tests.

During this time my vet burned the midnight oil searching through medical journals and calling every major teaching hospital and State Lab in the USA. NO ONE had a clue what this was. I called every professional mind I could think of from a virologist to a toxicologist. Again,....NO one had a clue! The pup's symptoms simply did NOT fit into any particular category of known disease.

Symptoms were as follows:

1st - Sitting up hanging head, will not lie down.

2nd - (within 2 hours) Labored breathing

3rd - (4 hours after first symptom) death gasp requiring oxygen mask to breathe

4th - (20 - 24 hours) death

Since we had NO idea what we were dealing with I kept the affected pups away from the healthy pups. In case it was a virus, I disinfected the entire house and bleached all bedding and floors. We changed clothes before going from well pups to sick pups and my hands were so raw from washing them with antibacterial solution and alcohol that they bled.

A friend lent me an oxygen condenser and I rented oxygen tanks for the sick puppies for oxygen masks ($15 per day). My house became a hospital with IV drips and oxygen tents. Even though the affected pups were put in oxygen tents I had to watch them VERY closely because if they began gasping I had to pull them out of the tent and put an oxygen mask directly over their muzzle or they could not breathe.

Since the pups could not nurse I attempted tube feeding. But, just as the 2nd pup I lost, tube feeding was not an option because as I "began" insertion of the tube the pup would fade. So we kept the affected pups going with 50 CC's Dextrose subcutaneous injections twice per day.

My husband had to work so this left me to care for the pups on my own. I was averaging 2 hours sleep per day for two solid weeks. Some days I would go for three whole days without even sitting down because I knew if I ever sat down I'd fall asleep and my pups would die.

To lighten the mood of this story I'll tell on myself about the time I was standing up leaning on the kitchen table with my eyes glued to the oxygen tent and the next thing I knew I hit the floor. I fell asleep standing up and landed top of Baby, who was not impressed by the way. She looked at me like "Mom, are you nuts?".

The first 24 - 48 hours were critical. But here is the turning point. I was walking the floor with one of the pups holding an oxygen mask on its muzzle, (crying and praying out loud to God to save my babies), and rubbing the puppy's throat when God gave me the answer. The pup's throat was swollen. No one noticed this before because the swelling was in the esophageal region, not in the lymph nodes nor tonsils. They couldn't breathe because the breathing pathways and esophagus was swollen shut. Thus the reason tube feeding caused the puppy to fade. The tube completely closed off the airway.

It just so happened at this time my husband was at the vet picking up more antibiotics. I called the vet and told him what the good Lord had shown me. (Boy this sure made me a believer in the power of prayer!)

The vet prescribed something that you "never" give a puppy. He gave us Cortisone. The vet did not want to prescribe it, but as he said, "at this point, what choice do we have?". We were told to give one injection that day (only to the affected puppies), wait 48 hours and give a second injection "IF" they needed it, but no more.

That was the turning point. Within 24 hours of the first injection the pups would lick about a teaspoon of thin gruel from my fingers. Within 48 hours they would lick about 1/4 cup from a flat dish. Within 72 hours they ate about a half cup of gruel and nursed on the dam for 5-10 minutes. They were rapidly showing improvement.

After the first week we decided that the preventative medicine had to be working because we had no new symptomatic pups and the affected pups were showing improvement. The thing was...we had NO idea "which" medicine was working, so we had to keep them on everything.

Now, here is what you’ve been waiting for.

Ten days after the culture was sent off we received Lab results. They are as follows:

PATHOLOGY:

This is the fresh carcass of a male Mastiff puppy in good nutritional condition. The subcutaneous tissue of the ventral abdomen is very watery. The spleen is approximately 2 times normal size and very dark. The lungs fail to collapse and are mottled gray to red. The parenchyma (cells in a tissue or tissues in an organ that are concerned with function) is slightly firm and large portions sink in formalin.

Morphologic Diagnosis:

Lung - Severe locally extensive bronchopneumonia

Spleen - Splenomegaly (Definition: An enlargement of the spleen beyond its normal size.)

Diagnosis:

Canine Adenoviral pneumonia with secondary bacterial (Klebsiella) infection

Antimicrobial Susceptibility:

Organism - Klebsiella pneumonia

Amikacin: susceptible Ampicillian: resistant

Amox/Clavul: susceptible Bacitracin: resistant

Ceftiofur: susceptible Clindamycin: resistant

Cephalothin: susceptible Erythromycin: resistant

Chloramphenicol: susceptible Sulfadimethox: resistant

Enrofloxacin: susceptible Vancomycin: resistant

Gentamicin: susceptible

Kanamycin: susceptible

Neomycin: susceptible

Orbifloxacin: susceptible

Tetracycline: susceptible

Trimeth/sulfa: susceptible

The lab results diagnosed Canine Adenovirus Type 2 infection with a secondary bacterial infection of Klebsiella. Now the peculiarity of it was that none of the pups showed ANY symptoms of Adenovirus. No fever, no runny eyes or nose, no diarrhea, no vomiting. The only symptoms were those listed previously. Seven days after the onset of the puppies’ symptoms the dam came down with a slight temperature for 48 hours. No other symptoms. It is suspected she, too, was affected. But due to the fact she was an adult, and she had been put on Cephalexin following her C-section, her system had some antibodies to prevent serious illness.

I believe it is important to note that the dam had been fully vaccinated five (5) weeks before being bred. The vaccine did contain Adenovirus Type 2 and I made sure that all pups nursed from the dam prior to bottle feeding. My only guess is that either the vaccine was bad, or she did not develop the necessary antibodies from the vaccine. I have vowed to never again breed a bitch without doing titers first.

The dam had not been off premises prior to, nor following her C-section. Neither had any of our other dogs been off our premises, nor stray dogs on our property within the confines of the fenced area where the dam ventured. We took special care to change clothes and wash after returning from the vet to pick up Puppy Formula. So we do not know how the virus was introduced.

After much diligence, many tears, loss of sleep, a wonderful caring veterinarian, and pure determination; eleven (11) pups out of fourteen (14) survived. A total of seven (7) pups were affected. We lost three(3), three(3) were severely ill, and (1) just symptomatic for twenty four (24) hours. The other pups were never symptomatic. The most likely reason the other pups did not become symptomatic is because of aggressive preventative medicine.

All eleven (11) surviving pups are doing extremely well. At eight(8) weeks of age ten(10) of the pups passed their veterinary exams with flying colors. During the exam I requested Specific Gravities, and BUN on the pups whose Specific Gravities were questionable. The one puppy who had some remaining congestion also had chest X-rays. They have all been declared healthy except for one male who has some minor lung damage. At twelve weeks of age he was declared healthy and the vet said he should live a normal, healthy life.

During this ordeal, in my search for answers, I spoke with another breeder who reported she had a litter of thirteen (13) with the "very exact same symptoms"; she lost her entire litter. Neither necropsies nor cultures were performed so she never did find the cause.

I posted this article on the Mastiff Breeder list and requested it to be forwarded to other Breed lists. I have received phenomenal response from other breeders of all breeds who have lost entire litters to this horrid illness and no one knew what it was or how to treat it. Many letters of thanks have flooded into my email. One month after my ordeal my vet reported to me that a litter of Boxer pups was brought in with the exact same symptoms. Because of our recent experience, the vet knew how to treat it.

An important note: Clorox Disinfecting Spray kills 99% of most bacteria for up to 24 hours and also kills Adenovirus Type 2.

I wish to extend my eternal gratitude to a dedicated and conscience veterinarian, Dr. Steven Crews DVM, at the Reelfoot Animal Hospital. Without his dedication, diligence, and hard work I would never have saved my litter.

I apologize for this being such a long report, but I hoped to share this with you so if you ever see similar symptoms you will know what to look for and how to treat it to save your litter. Knowledge is Power !!!

Donna Dick

Mastiffs Of Grandeur

http://www.mastiffplace.com

Canine Adenovirus