Team: 1020
School: Gadsden Mid
Area of Science: Epidemiology
Interim: Team Number: 1020
School Name: Gadsden Middle School
Area of Science: Epidemiology
Project Title: Canine Distemper Effects in Animal Dog Pound
Problem Definition:
https://www.petfinder.com/dogs/dog-health/how-is-distemper-in-dogs-spread/
https://cwhl.vet.cornell.edu/disease/canine-distemper#collapse3
https://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/2018/08/09/las-cruces-animal-shelter-dog-distemper-outbreak/951928002/
Las Cruces Data
Canines can catch this disease by going in direct contact with an infected canine by touching the blood, saliva and urine. The symptoms for distemper are: digestive problems such as vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite, dehydration, and weighed loss. The digestive problems occur shortly after the canine has been infected. Neurological signs found in canine distemper such as tremors in the head, neck, and or more legs. The physical changes in canine distemper include overgrowth in the foot pads of the canine and teeth abnormalities can be seen in dogs that are recovering from this deadly disease. The Las Cruces Animal Shelter has to euthanize dogs that show symptoms of Distemper.
We will be using Starlogonova to model an outbreak of distemper at an animal shelter. We found the mortality rate for distemper for adult dogs is at 50%. The mortality rate for puppies is 80%. The program will have a very population of dogs held at the animal shelter for July 1st. You will be researching how many new dogs were bought during those months that were unknown to be vaccinated to distemper. We will use those numbers to investigate how dogs and puppies living in a fenced kennels. We will find the percent of vaccinated healthy dogs in the animal shelter at that time and the potentially not vaccinated dogs. Twelve dogs were euthanized at the shelter since July 1st. We will run a program that shows seven dogs that did not show symptoms. The program will show how many dogs and puppies will die due to transmission of distemper in a shelter. Our program is going to investigate how much of the dogs and puppies will have to be euthanized due to catching distemper.
Problem/Solution
The problem is that some dogs are infected with canine distemper and get housed at the animal shelter causing a high mortality rate. The question will be is how many dogs and puppies will have to be euthanized at a set population at an animal shelter. One of our variables is 50% of the dogs will be vaccinated before the seven infected dogs spread the disease. We will change the variable to 70%, 80% and 90% vaccinated against distemper.
The solution is that we will show if the population of dogs and puppies will survive the outbreak of the disease when 70%, 80% and 90% of the population is vaccinated.
Progress to Date
The Starlogonova shows the black dogs adults and brown dogs were the puppies. The red dogs were the infected adult. The green dogs were the infected puppies. When an infected dog or puppy interacts with a healthy dog or puppy it has a high of the healthy dog or puppy catching. In other words if the dog collides with a black or brown dog its will turn red or green meaning it will catch the disease.
Team Members:
Sponsoring Teacher: Danielle McFarland