Wakulla County Animal Services is working to contain the Parvo outbreak.

• Animals at the Wakulla County Animal Services facility are usually up for adoption, but no animals are available for adoption at this time.
• The reason is an outbreak of parvovirus and the animals are forced to be quarantined.
• Watch the video to see how long this will impact the shelter’s ability to once again accept animals with the highly contagious and potentially deadly virus.

broadcast transcript:

“We knew we wanted to get this dog, her name was Midnight, but we changed her name to Diamond. She is so sweet that she loved us from the very beginning.”

Some time after Amy Young adopted her dog Diamond from Wakulla Animal Services on Oct. 26, she noticed something was wrong.

“Everything was fine when we first took her home, she was jumping and playing, but on Sunday morning she started vomiting and vomiting.”

She took her to Crawfordville Animal Hospital, where Diamond tested positive for parvovirus.

“They took her and I was furious about it because from what I heard from someone at the shelter, no one from the shelter contacted me.”

On Tuesday, Wakulla Animal Services announced a parvovirus outbreak at the facility.

They say they have quarantined all the animals and closed the doors to protect the animals and the public.

I spoke with Dr. Kyle Marsh of Crawfordville Animal Hospital, who is no stranger to treating dogs with parvo.

Dr. Marsh says he and other veterinarians regularly provide health advice to the shelter.

“Shelters are a tricky situation because they throw out unwanted animals and they take in strays, so shelters are always kind of a hot spot for anything outside of parvo, so what they’re doing right now is limiting the spread within the county.”

Dr. Marsh says he has seen other cases in the community and limiting contact and cleaning will help stop the spread.

Wakulla Animal Services says it “urges the public to take steps to protect their pets by ensuring up-to-date vaccinations and being aware of the symptoms of Parvo, such as lethargy, vomiting, diarrhea and loss of appetite.”

Since then, they have implemented a strict cleaning, disinfecting and maintenance protocol.

Since the shelter closed, not a single dog has been euthanized.

They also said three dogs were showing symptoms and were being closely monitored, but none were in critical condition.

“Our community needs to help this shelter because it has gotten worse and everyone needs to come together and help this shelter because us animals need it.”

At this time, we do not know when the quarantine will be lifted or how many dogs at the facility have tested positive for parvo.