Diarrhea may develop. As the disease progresses, there may be swelling of the anus, thickening and hardening of the pads of the feet, and orange crusting of the skin in the abdominal and anal areas. Finally there are muscular tremors, hyperexcitability, convulsions, and death. Each ferret is an individual and some ferrets go directly to the convulsion and hyperexcitable stage without any discharges. There is no other disease in the ferret that has the characteristic crusting of the lips or chin and hardening of the pads all occurring at the same time.
Diagnosis is based primarily on signs.
Animals diagnosed with canine distemper are normally euthanized because the disease difficult and expensive to treat, and even with treatment, survival is not guaranteed. The treatment is a transfusion of a serum made from the blood of well-vaccinated ferrets. Some people have reported anaphylactic shock reactions 30 minutes to 3 hours after using the Fervac-D vaccine. To reduce the risk associated with this reaction, there are several safety measures you can take. First, do not give rabies and distemper shots at the same time.