Article: Vaccination is highly effective in dogs with a good immune system. Get your dog vaccinated as soon as it is old enough. This is the best and most effective way of keeping your dog safe and stopping the spread of the disease. Puppies cannot be vaccinated when they are very young. A puppy has maternally derived antibodies (MDA) present in the bloodstream. These interfere with the pup's body registering the vaccine, as the MDA can attack the vaccine. This is why the last vaccine needs to be given around 16 weeks of age, because by this time the MDA has gone from the pup's body. When a puppy is too young to be vaccinated you should keep it away from other dogs. While it is good to get a young dog socialized to many different animals and experiences, the risk of a life-threatening parvo virus should delay this socialization. You should also keep an infected dog isolated. This will help to limit the spread of the infection. Also tell your neighbors that your dog has parvo so that they can take proper precautions to keep their dogs safe. If you have had a parvo breakout in your home, do not risk infecting future dogs in the home. Bleach kills the virus, so all items that can be thoroughly cleaned with bleach should be. Items that cannot be cleaned with bleach should be disposed of. If you have had a dog with parvo you should not bring a puppy into your home for at least six months after the virus is treated. This is even after you disinfect your home with bleach and replace items that cannot be properly disinfected. The risk to a puppy is too high to risk exposing it to this deadly virus. Since parvo can live in the environment for long periods of time, it is a good idea to keep dog areas as tidy as possible to limit the risk of parvo being present. If you know a dog with parvo has gone to the bathroom in a specific area, that area should be disinfected. Use a solution of bleach and water to accomplish this, with a ratio of 1 part bleach to 15 parts water. Pour this on outside areas that may be infected with parvo.  This is not to say that you can eliminate it for sure, but you can reduce the chances of it surviving in your yard or dog area. Even after you disinfect an area, you should not bring uninfected dogs into the area for six months.  Parvovirus is extremely hardy and it is not deactivated by high temperatures. It can survive at up to 60C for 60 minutes, meaning it can even survive steam cleaning. It is also resistant to desiccation (drying out). The only thing that will kill it is bleach, so all laundering and cleaning needs to include bleach. Parvovirus does a lot of harm in the body because it requires dividing cells to grow. It tends to colonize the gut wall, because the cells there divide rapidly. This rapid attack of cells leads to a quickly debilitating illness.  This is also why the heart is at risk in puppies, because the cells of the heart are dividing rapidly in young dogs and so they are ripe for viral colonization. Infected feces can pose a risk to unvaccinated dogs for weeks or months, or even years, to come. This combined with the severity of the virus' effects is why parvovirus outbreaks are so serious and devastating.

What is a summary?
Get your dog vaccinated. Keep puppies and unvaccinated dogs isolated. Disinfect and dispose of contaminated items. Disinfect areas where dogs go to the bathroom. Be aware of the severity of the virus.