One of the hardest parts of what we do is caring for the Glitter Animals.
“Glitter Animals” is a game, of sorts, that I started playing by myself when caring for animals who have any of the closely related and highly lethal carnivore parvoviruses: canine distemper, canine parvovirus, feline panleukopenia, and raccoon parvovirus, all of which can infect multiple species. I play this “game” to remind myself of how incredibly contagious these viruses are.
The animal, I tell myself, is covered in glitter. I imagine that it is everywhere, falling from their fur at all times. Their poop, vomit, blood, and spit are all glitter. They breathe glitter. They pee glitter. And if any trace of the glitter makes it to an unvaccinated animal of a susceptible species, it, too, will become a Glitter Animal.
The glitter is on my gloves as soon as I touch the animal, and when my gloves hand brushes against my pants, it’s on them too. If I set the animal in a blanket on my lap while I’m feeding it, the glitter falls onto my shoes and onto the floor when I pick the blanket up. And the blanket itself, of course, will need to be washed not just once, but two or three times to get all the glitter off. If I put an animal on a scale, the scale is now covered too, completely. An incubator that has housed a glitter animal needs an incredibly thorough cleaning.
Glitter Animals need food, fluids, and medicine many times throughout the day, day and night. When there are other animals who also need 24 hour attention here at this very small facility, there is almost nothing that can be done to completely stop the spread of the glitter.
Glitter Animals usually die even with the best treatment, and it’s illegal, here in Tennessee, to take some Glitter Animals. We only end up with them when an animal develops the disease while in our care. We quarantine new patients and vaccinate all animals over four weeks old, but occasionally, one of our animals still becomes a Glitter Animal.
Glitter Animals are an enormous challenge, and we often have to make very painful decisions: do we try to save the Glitter Animal even if it means we must severely limit our number of other patients? Would it be wrong to turn away five healthy fox kits— or risk exposing them to the “glitter”— because we are treating one raccoon for distemper and simply don’t have enough space or time to guarantee that glitter won’t make its way around?
These are hard decisions that rehabilitators and shelter workers make almost every day, and they’re hard ones. Our choices often come down to which animals have the best chance, our amount of available space, and any applicable state laws. It’s never easy, but we always do our best.
When someone calls us and describes an animal that has symptoms consistent with any of the “glitter” diseases— some of which also have symptoms similar to rabies— we often hear anger and frustration over the fact that we must turn these patients away. But please ask yourself: how many glitter animals could really be treated in one small facility?
For Fox Sake Wildlife Rescue 