There is hope for distemper dogs

Please read our report on the effectiveness of the NDV treatments.

If you have a dog with canine distemper, you should get to the website for Kind Hearts In Action where you will find the protocols explaining how to make the NDV-induced serum discovered by Dr. Al Sears of Lancaster, California, in the late 1960s.

Dr. Sears was unable to publish his discovery and he retired from veterinary medicine in 2006 after more than 40 years in practice. However, his protocols for the NDV-induced serum has been available on a website started by Ed Bond in May 2000. Since then, some vets have followed his treatments and theories with success. Today, the NDV treatments include the NDV-induced serum, the NDV as an IV injection to the body and the NDV spinal tap, which is for dogs in the neurologic stage of distemper.

The full protocols on these treatments is available in a PDF download here.

The materials on these websites are provided by Dr. Sears and meant to be used by other vets. Kind Hearts In Action does not offer veterinary treatments or medicine. If you need help finding a vet, please e-mail Ed Bond at ed.bond.new.york@gmail.com. Tell us where you are, what breed and how old a dog you have, whether you have a diagnosis of distemper, what symptoms you have seen and whether you have seen seizures or neurologic problems yet.

These treatments are not a miracle cure, but distemper dogs treated with the NDV-induced serum before going through the sixth day of symptoms have a high rate of survival. Dr. Sears reports that he saved dogs at a rate in the high 90s. A vet in Houston also reports saving 90 percent of 150 distemper dogs treated with NDV-serum in 2010 as part of Project Hope. But the serum does not save dogs who have reached the neurologic stage. For those dogs, the treatment is the NDV spinal tap, but the survival rate for those dogs is only about 50 percent. However, dogs in that stage usually die or are euthanized. More statistics on the effectiveness of the NDV treatments are available here. Unfortunately, not every dog makes it, but more dogs survive when their owners try.

How you can help Save Dogs From Canine Distemper

Save Dogs From Canine Distemper is a project of Kind Hearts In Action a 501c3, dog-oriented charity, and we gladly accept donations. We also offer a two-hour DVD of a lecture by Dr. Sears on his treatments for a $10 donation, plus shipping. But our ultimate goal is to help Dr. Sears achieve what he couldn't when he was a practicing vet: publication in a veterinary journal. Since December 2008, we have been compiling photos, videos and owner testimonials about dogs that have been saved with the NDV-induced serum, the NDV as IV injection and the NDV spinal tap. But we also recently learned that a study on the effectiveness of the NDV-induced serum was conducted in Korea in 2003 where 52 percent of distemper dogs had been saved, and Dr. Sears serum has been made available through the Korean Animal Blood Bank since 2004.

While we have numbers, we need more details. To continue to build the case for Dr. Sears' serum, we need to compile more reports on specific cases from vets who have used it. We need details from vets on dog breed, age, symptoms, diagnosis, outcomes and relevant dates. If you have a dog that has been treated with the NDV-induced serum and you want the results included in a proposed article for veterinary publication, please have your vet contact Ed Bond, the project director for canine distemper for Kind Hearts In Action. Any vet who submits information would be credited in the resulting article.

We also still post videos, photos and owner testimonials and if you would like to have a Web page about your dog on our site -- as a success story if it lived or as a memorial if it died -- please write to Ed Bond. 

For more news about the battle against canine distemper, follow Kind Hearts In Action through our main website, on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Ed Bond
project director on canine distemper
Kind Hearts In Action