08/29/2026
Okay I have a big update, and so far it's a good update. Nancy and her 7 puppies, rescued from Devore shelter on 8/27, are doing well. But yesterday definitely threw everything into a tailspin. A day after arriving at their foster homes the puppies started showing some upper respiratory symptoms, which is common for puppies coming out of shelters. No big deal, talk some strategies with the fosters, and monitor the situation. Then reports start coming in about diarrhea. Okay again problem, could be the food that they're on since they were used to Mama, could also be stressed from a complete change of circumstances. No problem. Then the reports start coming in about blood in the diarrhea for at least two puppies. Oh crap, could still be new diet and stress, but definitely something that we need to look at.
I schedule an appointment with my local go to vet, Goleta Airport Pet Hospital , to see if we can get the puppies in that afternoon for an exam and to just make sure everybody's good. One of the puppies with bloody diarrhea was really starting to act lethargic and not interested in food or water, so time was definitely of the essence. They got us in and first thing we did a snap parvo test on the sickest puppy. She showed positive for parvo viral load really quick. That caused us to change everything else from there, and we had to then source who had monoclonal antibodies in town.
For better or for worse, Santa Barbara is a community with low parvovirus rates, so our vet offices here are not readily stocked with the antibody treatments like they are in other communities that deal with this frequently. Our local emergency clinic, Advanced Veterinary Specialists , had five doses and Santa Barbara Humane Society had four doses available. I needed seven to cover everyone. SB Humane couldn't accommodate us yesterday afternoon because it was too late in the day, and now I had four puppies with diarrhea. So I opted to take those four over to the emergency to get them started since they were symptomatic. Luckily the other three didn't have enough of a viral load to show positive, which means we got ahead of this before they got sick. The puppy that did test positive didn't have a fever, which is also good. So those four got the treatment and the total cost for them at AVS was $3,628.51 with IV fluids sent home to administer (saving time and money).
This morning the final three, which are still asymptomatic, received their treatments over at SB Humane for a total of $1,482.
I have spent $5,110.51 in the past 12 hours. There were people suggesting to take them to Tijuana; all of the puppies and I are located in Santa barbara, which is a minimum of 6 hours to a Tijuana vet. Not only did I not have that kind of time in my day, I didn't think it was prudent to haul puppies that were not feeling good that far just to try and save money. I also don't have any contacts with any vets in Los Angeles area, but still have the same dilemma of time it would take me to do that and hauling sick puppies on a long car ride when they just came in from a long car ride the night before. Anyone who has dealt with parvo knows that getting ahead of it is the most prudent strategy, if you can do it. And while I only have one positive test and potentially could have waited for the others to start showing symptoms before I started getting the treatment, I knew I had enough treatments in my community to cover all of them right now. I knew none of them were sick enough that they would need hospitalization which considerably changes the cost. I knew that this was my best opportunity to help them if I could get them all treatment asap.
I've been here before, I've even been here before when treatment was available and provided timely. I went through this a few months ago with puppies from Riverside. The one that tested positive that was sick didn't make it even though the treatment has pretty high success rates. To say I'm stressed every time I hear the word "positive" for a parvo test is an understatement, it is a circumstance that causes me to have a panic attack and complete post-traumatic stress reaction. Which did happen as well yesterday.
The positive update is that the puppies are not having more diarrhea, are eating and drinking, I have two amazing fosters that are able to hang in there with them and me through all this, and we have everything we need to support them right now. The panic attack comes from the emotional component of dealing with parvo, and the profound fear of how am I going to afford this because I'm a small rescue. People have been great and donating, and honoring pledges when we've been able to provide updates. I know not all pledges will be honored, not everybody will see the update. I put emergency bill on my CareCredit, but the Humane Society doesn't take carecedit so that came out of my bank account.
So that's the update for this family. I will continue to post updates as I have them. If everybody's status quo I probably won't update except for maybe to show cute puppy pictures. Ideally everything will pass without issue and they will be adoptable in about 3 weeks.
Thank you to everyone who stepped up when I was panicking, and to my fosters who are rockstars. I think it's going to be okay, and I need to assess my financial situation to see if I need to do a go fund me. I will create an Amazon wish list for these puppies, and I have a couple of other moms that I rescued recently as well with their puppies and I need to do Amazon wish list for them and post their updates too. They are doing great, no issues with any of them right now so that's a blessing.
