Rat terrier canine distemper symptoms and treatment and prevention methods

Jul 27,2025
5Min
What are the symptoms of canine distemper in rat terrier dogs? Do you also want to know more about it? So how to prevent canine distemper? The following editor will share with you the symptoms and treatment and prevention methods of canine distemper in rat terrier dogs.

Canine distemper symptoms and treatment and prevention methods in rat terrier dogs:

If your rat terrier dog sneezes, has a runny nose, coughs, has a fever (the body temperature can reach above 40°, and then quickly drops to normal temperature after 2 days), you need to be careful. Your rat terrier dog may get the disease. I have canine distemper.

1. Symptoms of canine distemper in rat terrier dogs

Early symptoms of canine distemper

If a rat terrier dog gets canine distemper, the early symptoms are mainly cold symptoms and enteritis symptoms. Sneezing, runny nose, cough, fever (body temperature can reach above 40°C, lasting for 2 days and then quickly drops to normal temperature), eating less, and mild diarrhea. After 2-4 days of treatment, the symptoms basically disappeared and the food intake returned to normal. However, the eating speed slowed down, the spirit was poor, the patient was inactive, and the nose was dry.

Canine distemper symptoms in the mid-term

Canine distemper in rat terriers begins to turn into the middle stage in 7-14 days, when the body temperature rises for the second time. Generally speaking, it will be above 40 degrees, and any antipyretic medicine will have little effect and last for 7-12 days; loss of appetite, runny nose, dry cough, rapid breathing, red, swollen, moist or eroded eyelids.

Symptoms of late stage canine distemper

In the late stage of canine distemper in rat terrier dogs, the body temperature returns to normal (perhaps accompanied by a slight fever, about 38.5-39.5 degrees), cough, purulent nasal discharge, eyelid erosion, and half-open eyes. , eyes become smaller, lose weight, like to lie down and move around. Eat less, be picky about food, or go on hunger strike, and have diarrhea. Symptoms such as thickened toe pads, skin papules (in some cases, rice-sized red papules appear on the skin of the lower abdomen and medial thigh) and neurological symptoms appear.

2. Four manifestations of neurological symptoms of canine distemper

1. The rat terrier’s mouth opens and closes, or the corners of the mouth, head muscles, or one, two or four legs shake rhythmically.

 2. Rat Terrier dogs move blindly

3. Epilepsy, spasmodic intermittent seizures, involuntary continuous "smacking of the lips", foaming at the mouth or blood in the saliva, incontinence of urine and feces, excitement and restlessness after the convulsion, blind running, and finally general weakness, lying on the ground to rest .

4. The hind legs of rat terriers are paralyzed or even paralyzed.

3. Prevention and control of canine distemper

The best way to prevent and treat canine distemper in rat terrier dogs is to regularly immunize them and receive the canine distemper vaccine. If your rat terrier is unlucky enough to get canine distemper, here are some treatments:

Timely isolation and treatment. Timely detection of sick dogs, early isolation and treatment, and prevention of secondary infections are the keys to improving the cure rate and reducing mortality. sickIn the early stage, anti-canine distemper hyperimmune serum (or canine pentavalent hyperimmune serum) or serum (or whole blood) of dogs recovered from the disease can be injected intramuscularly or subcutaneously.

At the same time, disinfection of the kennels should be strengthened. If you feed multiple rat terriers, the sick rat terriers should be strictly isolated first. At the same time, various disinfectants, such as basalt, Lysol, caustic soda, sodium hypochlorite, etc., are used for thorough disinfection.

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