At-Home Parvo Test Kits
Advocate for the biosecurity and space safety of the pets of your family, even in the midst of a large scale disruption or disasters.
Emergency Preparedness for Pet Families
The number, frequency, and scale of disaster affecting families (including those with pets) is increasing dramatically.
In 2023, the U.S. experienced the highest number of weather and climate disasters (403) since 1980. Total costs in damages from these events exceeded $2.91 trillion USD.1 The World Meteorological Organization has reported a fivefold increase in weather, climate- and water-related disasters from 1970 to 20192 - the incidence and scale of disasters will continue to increase.
If not safely evacuated by their caregivers, pets may be injured, killed, or lost. Disasters can be sudden and acutely devastating3 or protracted with long term mass casualty effects4. The devastating fires in California 20255 will disrupt the public health (human and non-human) strategies, infrastructure, and resources for decades to come.
In any emergency or disaster setting, the public health protocols that normally prevent the spread of infectious disease are often not in place and veterinary medical resources are spread thin and under-resourced - it is important for families to advocacy for their pets in the midst of stressful, chaotic emergency situations.
Health monitoring program & biosafety test kits
Education is advocacy, preparedness is care. You can not keep your pet-family out of disaster, but you can plan and prepare to reduce their stress load or health risk exposure. Our health monitoring program aims to build the health resiliency within family-units by equipping families with the tools and education to be prepared, agile in response, and able to take action for their animal family member, even in turbulent situations.
What actions can you take that gains back your self- and family-advocacy in a disaster situations that, by definition, leaves you with few, if any?
Disaster preparedness & survival planning
Disaster preparedness is a constant state - food, water, and medications should be rotated and account for changes in seasons and health needs. Staying safe in a disaster requires adequate advance preparation. “Stay ready to stay safe”
what biosecurity and biosafety tools do you carry?
what’s your plan to create a health-safe space for your animal during an evacuation or disruption of normal biosecurity measures?
During a disaster, veterinary resources and response time may be low, how can you be prepared to take immediate action when your animal needs you?
Advocate for the biosecurity and space safety of the pets of your family, even in the midst of disaster when there are few sure answers and many novel and severe health risks.
The Risk of Infectious Disease Exposure during Disasters
Be your pet’s first line of defense. Empower yourself with the tools to detect and respond to health risks before it’s too late.
In the midst of the unknown but growing risk of large-scale disruptions, what can you do to actively defend your pet’s health and advocate for their safety throughout the unknown. While disruption to lives, homes and infrastructure from a disaster is devastating, the disruption itself is not unpredictable.
The health risks to your pet from a large scale disruption can be planned for and mitigated. Evaluating your pet’s health risk from an evacuation or emergency sheltering situation in advance, can help you prep your GoBag with the right supplies, medications, and toolkits to navigate the unknown, with more safety and assurance.
Why Overcrowded Evacuation Sites Pose a Risk
Highly contagious diseases combined with close contact between animals in crowded spaces rapidly increases transmission risk. The close interaction and mixing of species allows viruses the opportunity to mutate and spread.
The high stress environments of disaster situations and evacuation shelters increases the risk of disease carriers shedding more infectious virus particles into the environment and make, even vaccinated animals, more susceptible to and they may experience more severe clinical disease.
There are a lot of reasons that a stressed animal may show signs of illness - diarrhea, lethargy, lack of interest in food - but not all of the causes are deadly. There is one that is easy to identify, and while deadly if not caught early, easily accessible, pet-parent initiated test kits can both identify disease early and allow containment while also improving the likelihood of successful treatment in severely affected patients.
Whether you’re advocating for your own pet’s safety or want to be able to assist in early identification and care in the animals around you during an emergency situation - prepare with a parvo test kit and add one to your GoBag supplies.
About Canine Parvovirus (CPV)
Parvovirus is critical biosecurity issue due to its rapid spread, environmental resilience, and impact on domestic and wild animal populations.
Preventative measures, such as vaccination, early detection (testing kits), sanitation, and outbreak response planning, are essential for public health, animal welfare, and ecological stability.
Canine parvovirus (CPV) is an important pathogen that affects canids worldwide.
Some strains can also infect wild canids (wolves, foxes, coyotes). The virus can quickly mutate, new variants are more efficient at causing disease in canines and can even cause disease in cats.
CPV can affect dogs between 6 weeks and 2 years of age. Mortality in untreated puppies may exceed 70%. Disease in healthy, vaccinated adult dogs may be mild. Animals with lower immunity, concurrent disease conditions or in stressful environments are more susceptible to contracting the disease and may demonstrate more severe clinical signs of disease, even if vaccinated.
Environmental Persistence & Indirect Impact
The parvovirus is extremely hardy, surviving in the environment for months to years. Both indirect and direct contact can efficiently spread the virus. Decontamination of an infected environment requires intensive cleaning with specific disinfection protocols.
Parvovirus can be carried on shoes, hands, and objects - especially hidden in feces - leading to accidental spread. When protected by organic matter, the virus may remain infectious in the environment for months. Patients with mild infections can shed the virus into the environment even in the absence of clinical signs.
Highly Contagious
CPV is highly contagious and spreads rapidly among dogs, particularly in close living or sheltering environments.
Poor sanitation and biosecurity protocols can significantly increase the risk of transmission and contamination of the environment.
Severity of disease
CPV is an enteric pathogen that attacks the rapidly dividing and highly metabolically active cells of the GI track and lymphatic system.
Clinical signs can be severe with acute GI signs with possible hemorrhagic enteritis, WBC depletion, and life-threatening hypovolemia that requires intravenous fluid intervention in a clinical setting.
Some animals, identified early, can be treated as an outpatient, but many patients require fluid resuscitation, systemic antibiotics, pain medications and intense supportive care.
Patient surge and health resources
Large-scale outbreaks of CPV can overwhelm veterinary resources and animal shelters. It’s persistence in the environment and transmissibility can contaminate shelter facilities and other animal care equipment and housing, devastating the options for safe sheltering options in an emergency.
Learn more about the clinical presentation of parvovirus in this Handout.
The Biosecurity Initiative
This initiative provides testing kits that allow early detection, prevention, and containment of infectious diseases through stress-free sample collection (e.g. feces).
Field-ready testing kits allow animal professionals and conscious animal guardians to proactively manage outbreaks and reduce the spread of contamination and disease.
Our Biosecurity initiative is supported by our OfficeHours Subscription - helping conscious animal guardians and animal care professionals learn about and implement biosafety protocols and pet safety action steps.
OfficeHours are open virtual sessions, held twice weekly, providing access to qualified veterinary professionals available to answer questions about disaster preparedness, your pet’s needs during a disaster, and provide guidance on any health monitoring test.
Parvovirus Testing Kit | $65 USD
Our Parvo Test Kit enables early and accurate detection of parvovirus, supporting informed decisions while creating environmental and space safety for your pet.
Professional support for questions and guidance with positive test results
Receive 6 months of Office Hours Subscription with any Parvo Test kit purchase.
This subscription provides easy access to health professionals ready to support and guide next steps and answer questions to any positive result on a health monitoring kit.
Our team is ready to help with guidance so you are prepared to act quickly and decisively if early disease is detected.
Reminders and how-to classes for updating GoBag supplies, including test kits
Parvo test kits expire, just like other disaster preparation supplies - food, water, medications, other environmental testing kits.
We will reach out every 6 months before your test expires to remind you to refresh or replace your GoBag supplies. This is an opportunity to change out seasonal items (add blankets for cold seasons, or prepare for heat injury).
With your discounted community tickets - participate in community disaster exercises and preparedness training, including GoBag prep and practice classes.
Which Pet Families should include a parvo test kit in their GoBags?
Include a canine between 6 weeks and 2 years old.
Even vaccinated animals exposed to parvovirus can experience some clinical signs. Clinical signs of exposure to even a low viral load, when complicated by other concurrent disease or high-stress environments, can progress to more serious symptoms.
Include an animal that is immunocompromised or with concurrent disease
Existing disease conditions such as renal or liver disease, immune-mediated disorders, GI diseases, cancer, and more impact an animal’s ability to respond to other health challenges - their bodies are already working hard to maintain balance over existing disease or weak body systems. Exposure to parvovirus may result in more serious clinical signs.
Animals with pre-existing disease may not receive regular vaccination against parvovirus. Animals with lower levels of immunity to parvovirus are at higher risk of contracting the disease and experiencing clinical signs.
Are consciously aware of the interconnectedness of health and biosecurity
The health of the families and animals adjacent to your own, impacts the health and wellbeing of your animal. Even if your animal has sufficient immunity to respond to low parvovirus exposure, long or frequent exposures to other infected animals will results in some level of clinical signs.
Be prepared to advocate for the animals adjacent to your family, to increase the defensible area and create space safety for your own pet family. Carry a parvo test kit to be ready to respond to the needs of others
Want to take action at a larger biosecurity and public health perspective
Science-minded, action-oriented and pragmatic animal caregivers interested in being aware, equipped, and prepared.
Simple detection tools, such as this parvo test kit, enables early and accurate detection of parvovirus, supporting informed decision-making by emergency and veterinary professionals in early outbreak management.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/
The Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes (1970-2019). 1 Sep 2021 https://policycommons.net/artifacts/1850732/the-atlas-of-mortality-and-economic-losses-from-we/2597666/
https://www.louisianaspca.org/about-us/hurricane-katrina/animal-rescue-facts/#:~:text=At%20least%2088%2C700%20pets%20went,across%20the%20entire%20Gulf%20Coast.