How easy is distemper to diagnose?

[Quality]

A member of my family recently bought a new puppy and being idiots they decided to 'socialise' it with another family dog in a public garden before any injections
The puppy is now very unwell a couple of weeks later, uncoordinated, falling over etc interspersed with bouts of seeming ok.
The vets have suggested a number of things and done blood tests but if the owners don't admit to taking it out (which they won't) will they spot distemper?

I need to know whether to berate them to tell the vet (we are not hugely close) or whether the vet woudl spot it anyway iyswim. Puppy is seeing vet near enough eveyr day and spent a couple of nights overnight as well. I am getting info from fb but have eye witness of the puppy having a dog playing with it.

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bumping, please, I need to know if a vet could spot distemper easily.

Impossible to say - all vets are different, with varied experience of any one condition.

I am NOT a vet, so this should NOT be taken as an absolute. I speak as someone who once had a pup with distemper (he WAS vaccinated, by the way),

Distemper presents as a collection of symptoms, which can include runny nose, fever, mucky eyes, vomiting, excessive thirst, being off food, diarroea (sp?), hardening of the pads of the feet and of the skin on the nose and, later, convulsions.

A vet's likelihood to spot ANY condition is partially dependent on how often he comes across it, I suspect. Some of he symptoms above could apply to a number of diseases.

If you are concerned but fear the family won't do as you suggest, call the vet yourself and tell them, anonymously if you prefer. A bit of Googling theur town, finding the name of a vet and then a simple "What vet do you use? Why? Oh, because my friend uses Peter Smith in the High Street, she says they're very good. Oh, I see, you prefer John Jones..." type of comment should be all it takes.

It really is down to the vet to decide what's wrong with this poor pup, who sounds in a pretty rough way. Please don't let anything get in the way of that.

I wouldn't let anything get in the way, but I can't call them atm as have no numbers (mobile failure) so am dependant on FB for contact. I can see that a few people have mentioned it to them now to ask vet about distemper. They are waiting on blood test results but it's all gone quiet and I have a horrible feeling it may be too late. The puppy was having convulsions already interspersed with bouts of normality.

Am beyond furious with them tbh, there is a history of selfish idiotic behaviour from them and this is beyond the pale imo. arseholes. Even if it doesn't turn out to be distemper socialising a puppy pre injections is just the most braindead dangerous thing to do

As a vet I base my clinical assessment on all the likely probabilities based on the symptoms, though some are higher up the list due to what the client tells me. However, I never take the clients word as gospel (I'm sure MN owners never do it, but lots of clients lie).
Distemper would be on the list of possibilities that I would consider, however, lower down as Valhalla describes quite a lot of the most common symptoms are missing. Toxoplasmosis and Neospora would be very high up the list and these blood tests can take 7 days so I wonder if this is what they are waiting for.

Thanks Liz, tbh distemper was the first/only thing I ahve thought of but tbh it could be a lot fo things really. the place they took it is somewhere where a lot of dogs go, and the dog it was playing with is only 1.5 so lots of playfighting going on. I have found which vet it is, and I am happy that they know what they are doing.
Idiots.

"Idiots"

Smiling here, Quality. If I had a pound for every time I've said that of someone on a dog-related forum thread...

I hope that the vet gets to the root of the problem and the little furball is better in no time.