A Herpe's Tale, By Jimmy Muray

                                                         A Herpe's Tale, By Jimmy Murray

                                                            NO, Not a Hobbit's Tale, A HERPES Tale!

In a land far away, there is a kingdom named Pyometra where talking dogs rule the land.  For thousands of years Pyometra was full of peace and plenty, with all breeds of dogs living together in harmony with abundant supplies of Purina and Hill’s Food available to all who were hungry.  The German Shepherds would serve in the Kings Guard with their great strength and sharp teeth.  The Labradors were firefighters, the Huskies would pull the food from the farmlands into the city, and the Boxers were engineers to keep the kingdom running smoothly.  In fact, all breeds had an important job in Pyometra, even the Chihuahuas bar tended at the popular Drunken Dog Pub&Cafe.  

But now things are different.  Henry Rottweiler VIII is King of Pyometra and is a cruel tyrant who has brought famine to the kingdom and unfairly persecutes anyone who speaks out against him.  The German Shepherds have turned all the other dogs into slaves while Henry and his wife Catherine live in luxury.  After 4 months of marriage, Catherine has announced to Henry and the rest of Pyometra that she is pregnant and due for puppies very soon.  While all the breeds despise the royal family due to their forced life of servitude without pay, the entire kingdom still throws her a huge puppy shower, as is custom to do for the royal family’s first litter.  Hundreds of gifts are brought including bones, collars, kong toys and leashes.  For the first time since Henry VIII has become king, there is an excitement stirring through the air as the dogs believe the litter may soften his heart and cause him to treat Pyometra’s citizens with more respect.

The day has finally come and Queen Catherine is in labor for over fourteen hours giving birth to five boys and three girls.  Within 48 hours after birth, it becomes evident that something is wrong...very wrong.  The puppies are all very lethargic with none of them suckling from the Queen’s royal nipples.    Some of them have diarrhea and others have a red erythematous rash on their skin.  The enslaved Dr. Dachshund veterinarian is rushed to the scene to figure out what is wrong, but unfortunately all the puppies are dead on arrival.  As the Queen cries in great sadness, the veterinarian collects the dead puppies and brings them to his lab for necropsy to try and solve the problem.  The King does not cry, but instead becomes furious and accuses Catherine of killing his five Royal Canine sons (he doesn’t really care about the three girls as they can’t become his successor).  Henry tells his German Shepherd guards that Catherine has poisoned the puppies and orders her to be put to death. The guards drag Catherine to the middle of a busy street in Pyometra and publicly execute her via barbiturates for all of the kingdom to see.

In the veterinary lab of Dogdex, the veterinarian begins his diagnostic necropsy on the puppies.  After opening up the body wall of one of the dogs, he notices that all of the major lymph nodes are significantly enlarged and filled with blood.  The lungs and kidneys had serious necrosis and hemorrhage.  The vet continued to necropsy the rest of the puppies and noticed similar findings in all of the dogs, but also found some necrosis to the adrenal glands and liver in some of Henry’s offspring.  The vet took samples from the lungs and kidneys for looking at them under his light microscope.  Under magnification, the tissues showed single, basophilic intranuclear inclusion bodies in the necrotic lesions.  The vet submitted these tissues for virus isolation by cell culture and subsequent identification by PCR testing because he suspected that these lesions were caused by Canine Herpes Virus.   

 Dr. Dachshund reports to Henry VIII and tells him the puppies died from Canine Herpes Virus.  Henry hears from the veterinarian that Catherine had been an asymptomatic carrier that had come into contact with the virus in the last three weeks of her pregnancy and passed the virus to her pups shortly after birth.    Despite hearing  this knowledge, Henry is still a cruel and naive ruler and believes that the veterinarian is in on the conspiracy to kill his children.  So, he does as all cruel tyrants would do and had Dr. Dachshund executed the next morning.  

Three months later, Henry re-marries a new dog named Anne-Bonelyn.  Two months after the wedding Anne becomes pregnant and in sixty five days after that, gives birth.  Everything seems fine until again, just like with Catherine, the puppies become very sick.  None of them are suckling and there is green diarrhea all over the pen.  All of the puppies die by the age of five days, except for one who is clinging on by the faintest of hopes.  Henry VIII wastes no time and has him taken to the best veterinarian in the kingdom (2nd best until Dr. Dachshund was executed).  The vet closely monitors the male puppy, named Harry, and feeds it a milk replacer and an experimental dose of the antiviral drug Vidarabine.  As Harry is making a recovery against all odds, King Henry VIII is busy being the evil dog that he is and has Anne-Bonelyn executed for killing his litter.  If it had not become evident to you that Henry is just a very, very bad dog who does not listen to anyone, then hopefully by now you can see that this is the case.  

It is considered a miracle that Harry makes a full recovery and grows up to be a relatively healthy dog.  However, Harry does have some permanent liver and lymphoid tissue damage that was not fully repaired after the severe viral infection that causes him to be sick and depressed from time to time.  Harry is living with Henry VIII as his only son and Henry is content never to remarry since he does have one son to succeed him now.  Harry has a completely different idea, which has been molded from the rumors and whispers he has heard about how cruel his father is by suppressing all the dogs of Pyometra and killing two of his wives.  Harry fixes all of this by collecting Rabies infected raccoons from the woods and placing five of them into Henry’s bed chamber one night.  All of the raccoons manage to bite Henry in his sleep before the guards are able to exterminate the raccoons.  Pyometra’s medical capabilities are not able to cure rabies once a dog has become infected, so Henry VIII is isolated and dies a painful death.  Harry succeeds as king, but instead of ruling he steps down from power and creates a democracy where all the dogs can vote for laws and politicians.  The cruelty has ended and Pyometra quickly returns to a prosperous land with equality to all.

RESOURCES

1) http://ocw.tufts.edu/Content/72/imagegallery/1362318/1368967/1376576

2)  https://www.addl.purdue.edu/newsletters/2008/Spring/CanHerp.htm

1. Merck Veterinary Manual http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/generalized_conditions/canine_herpesviral_infection/overview_of_canine_herpesviral_infection.html