New puppy, a garden with foxes and parvovirus

[Onvacation]

We are hoping to get our new golden retriever puppy in the next couple of months. He would come with his first set of jabs, but I am wondering/worried about the time between set 1 and set 2 because our local area and our garden has a large number of foxes (we sometimes see them sunning themselves on the grass or wandering through). I had thought we could let the puppy into the garden to go to the toilet, and to play until after the second batch of jabs, but will that be too dangerous with foxes around? Will we have to use puppy pads inside until he is fully protected? And then retrain for outside?

Probably if mum and dad have both had lifetime immunity through vaccines puppy is also safe until fully vaccinated? You can get a blood test to check parvo immunity though.

Not that there’s real complete immunity even once vaccinated, we are only ever reducing the risk.

My dogs have never caught anything from foxes. Just make sure you have tick and flea repellant on as they live in grass.

This is a tricky one... I knew a puppy recently that died of parvo just after its second set of vaccinations (and yes, its parents were fully vaccinated). Nobody knows where the virus came from - possibly a foxy garden, possibly dirt coming into the house on shoes or other dogs' paws, possibly even from the vets.

That said, my dogs have all had contact with foxy ground before their jabs were fully active and they've been fine. The dogs we had when I was a child weren't even vaccinated against it.

I think it's unreasonable to keep them inside: it's not good for their socialisation or their house-training and the risk of your puppy catching parvo is pretty low. I suppose a compromise would be to fox-proof part of your garden well ahead of time, but you'd need to use a fairly fine mesh (they can get through stock fencing) and even then, there are no guarantees.

Thanks for your thoughts. It is such a tricky one. I don’t think we could fox proof the garden (city foxes get everywhere), but I we could restrict the pup to the end of the garden near the house. Makes the garden a lot less fun but safer is best. Will need to look into getting our pup their first shots before they come to us (not breeder’s standard practice). It will mean a smaller risk period, I think.