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oley and other vets are doubtful about such a treatment. Antiviral treatments have not been successful. Most who espouse experimental treatments are only interested in grabbing media attention, funding and patients. ``If they're so wonderful,'' Foley said. ``Why don't they come forward and be tested in the methods of science?''
   But Foley _ who does not know Sears _ can understand why he hasn't come forward.  Research costs money, and distemper is better controlled through vaccination.  Finding a treatment after the disease has struck is a low priority in veterinary science.
   ``If I were to write a grant to study distemper, it wouldn't get funded," Foley said.

       I had to work the Sunday that Amy and Karen brought Galen back, but I was waiting when they got home.
   As I waited, I thought about the night before Galen left. Amy and I sat with him in the home office where he had to be kept. We didn't want Shadow exposed to the virus any more than we had to. We petted him, scratched his head, and took a few pictures. We were saying good-bye.
   ``I know,'' Karen said. ``I was so upset. I thought I was going to take him up there and he was going to die there.''
       That weekend even Shadow was unhappy.

At about the moment that Galen was brought into the back gate _ breathing, not cremated and scattered on a beach, not comatose or seizuring, all qualities I prefer in dogs _ Shadow launched herself through the dog door into the backyard.
   In the chaos that ensued, Karen and Amy explained to me that according to Sears, the virus had been turned off. However, the distemper had probably already done damage, possibly to the stomach, the lungs, most definitely the eyes, the skin on the nose and the pads of the feet.
   Distemper attacks the tear ducts, shutting them down, making it impossible for the eyes to naturally rewet themselves. That develops into dry eyes.
   Along with treatments of liquid vitamin A on the pads of the feet and on Galen's nose, which had seemed to dry up and crack like the bed of an evaporated lake, we also had to start putting ointment directly onto Galen's eyeballs.
Amy held Galen still, as Karen _ who seems to have a talent for these things, and a special relationship with Galen as his original rescuer _ started to apply the ointment. My job was just to hold Shadow.
   But she broke free, and with front legs outstretched, she threw herself bodily against Galen. About the closest a dog could come to giving a bear hug, as if to say, ``HOORAYYY!! Welcome home!''

       We kept up the treatments for a couple of weeks. Galen would sometimes need a muzzle because he hated the eye ointments and nose cream. We watched him carefully, wondering if a smacking of chops was a preliminary chewing gum seizure. Dr. B. saw one of these smacking of chops on a visit.
   ``If it was an actual seizure, you will see more,'' Sears told me. The mylen continues to degrade after decay begins.

       It has been months now. And Galen has remained healthy. We have found out he is really an aggressive dog, who will sometimes bite. But we are working on him, and he is getting better.
   Meanwhile the love affair continues between our dogs.
   Their favorite game is tug

[June 1997]

savedistemperdogs@yahoo.com

Dr. Al Sears