Dog vaccinations. What?

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Most of us around my area do puppy vaccines and the first year booster and then every 2 years.....some people are doing titer test to see if the vaccine is needed that year or not.....

I have a couple friends who do not vaccinate.....but it is impossible to board these dogs or to get them neutered etc.....

Vaccinations are a huge controversy.....not only in dogs but children as well....
 
When i was in school for veterinary stuff we learnt all about adverse reactions and such, personally, IF you are in a HIGH RISK area for things i can understanding wanting to keep up with vaccines, or when traveling with your pet across borders (because it is required).

I know owners and breeders of many dogs that won't vaccinate until past 6 months of age. and i know many people who will have titres checked for immunities so they don't have to vaccinate because of the way vaccines can react badly within dogs systems.

Some vaccines will even cause dogs to have anaphylactic reactions.

Personally, My dog get vaccinated to cross borders(requirement to bring her across) and gets lepto when we are going to Iowa because there have been a few dogs in the area we go to who had contracted lepto. I have seen dogs who have contracted lepto (2 of my friends dogs in college go tit) and OMG i never want to see an animal go through that again!

Other then that i'm getting her titres checked so i an avoid vaccination.
I would much rather see them pull some blood from her to check it then inject her with a bunch of vaccines every year.

All of the dogs on the farm have their titres checked and haven't been vaccinated in 4 years because their titres are still showing up high.

I will be glad once i get moved to Iowa for good and can switch her over to just titre check and not vaccines -_-.
 
Vaccines can cause severe adverse effects in people too, and the only reactions that are well known are the ones that occur quickly after vaccination. I think it's important to keep researching and trying to develop safer vaccines, while still vaccinating the general public in the meantime. The chance of having one of these adverse reactions is much lower than contracting the disease if not vaccinated.
What people and dog owners should consider is that, by getting vaccinated, they're not only protecting themselves or their dog, but those that are too young to have received the vaccination yet.
 
one way to prevent reactions is not to give so many shots in one day. I think vaccines are a good thing, but like with all things in life, you should be educated about them. They don't come with out risk, but I think the risk is worth the reward.
But some breeds are more susceptible to these issues, and should be watched carefully.
 
I also really don't like the way that article is written, its not very objective. They don't give any real information about the study, like how many dogs, what breed of dog, what age of dog, ect. They write it as if all the dogs experience issues, but I find that highly unlikely. In tests like that, its very rare to get a 100% response.
 
I do not vaccinate, I believe that they last a lifetime.

Cha got his puppy shots and it really messed up his whole body. After several months of at least two visits to the vet each month we switched him to raw and that finally brought him back on track.

Then he was due for his booster shots at age 1 and poof... he had issues again. That's when we realized it was the vaccinations. After some digging I found out that vaccinations for dogs/cats aren't really any different than those for people - they last much longer than a year and vaccinations can really do some damage. We opted not to vaccinate anymore, instead we do titers. Our vet is fully supportive of that.

Funny story - When Charlie was vaccinated for kennel cough.. he came down with kennel cough. Now that he is not vaccinated, he has never come down with it again even though he has been exposed to it multiple times. Go figure.
 
Interesting - never knew so many people opted out of vaccines. I've chosen not to vaccinate my cats each year (they got all their kitten shots when they were adopted) because they're indoor cats with extremely limited contact with other animals. We just don't GET house guests very often and the majority of those aren't around other cats. It seemed like an unnecessary expense and also very stressful for Zelda at least because she hates travel.

I skimmed the article as it's very late here. Can somebody explain to me what a 'titer' is and how it determines if I should vaccinate or not?
 
fenshae said:
I skimmed the article as it's very late here. Can somebody explain to me what a 'titer' is and how it determines if I should vaccinate or not?
Click to expand...

A titer is the amount of antibodies that are in the animals blood for that disease. If it is below a certain level then the animal is not immune to the disease and should be re vaccinated. If it is at an acceptable level then the animal is fine and does not need a booster.

My opinion on vaccines is it very much depends on need. If you have a dog that goes with you a lot of places, make sure that they are vaccinated for Parvo, Distemper, and always, always Rabies (in the US this is a law for most people). If its an outdoor cat, keeping up to date of vaccines are good as well. Indoor dogs and cats that have no interaction with other animals are less of a concern (but still do Rabies which usually lasts three years).

Testing titers is a really good way to ensure that you do not need vaccines. Most vaccines are not necessary for two-three years though some dogs for some reason, tend to loose immunity faster then others. So please get titers checked. A 6 year old dog that gets parvo virus has really bad chances of surviving.

Also if one dog is unvaccianted in a herd of dogs that are... does not mean that it is safe. The vaccinated dogs could be contaminated with the virus but already have an immunity then they can pass it to the unvaccinated dog.

Also, if you are ever breeding, you need to talk to your vet about a vaccine schedule. This is very important for the mom and pups.

Yay! My entire semester of Animal Disease control in one post LOL
 
It's good to get everyone's opinion and be more informed. I didn't even know such things existed as tested for titres. I'll have a talk with my vet when the time comes.
 
My dogs had their puppy shots through their respective rescues, and the boosters followed up.
We do rabies, only b/c it's law, and that's it.
I do their heartworm every summer, but not shots. I'm a firm believer that, much like ppl, it lasts a life time.

Your a great companion animal mama Jo, you'll know what the best thing to do is, you always do!
 
There is so much bias in this article and these studies it is unbelievable! This would make me think that the source of the information may not be trust worthy.

For example, in the very first paragraph:
"It was sponsored by the Haywood Foundation which itself was looking for evidence that such changes in the human immune system might also be vaccine induced. It found the evidence."
So does this mean that the people were actually scrutinizing their results OR did they just take the result and run. The first thing I ever do when reading an article like this is know who wrote it and what their background is. If you have someone against the point of the research then they are going to have a very different outlook then those that are for it.

I am currently doing biochem research and have found out VERY quickly that EVEN in established fields, you cannot believe everything you read. I myself have proven many published results to be inaccurate or inconsistant with the data that I have obtained using the same protocol and proceedures. Is their data wrong? Who knows? It just means that you can't base the outcome solely on that observation/result because it is not consistant.

This article doesnt even mention sample population (were these studies conducted on 2 dogs? 10 dogs? 25 dogs?), controls used (were the non vaccinated dogs injected with placebo? could injection of placebo have any effect on the results? were there control animals that had no injections?), or ANYTHING about the subjects used for testing (breed, age, prior vaccination history, etc).

Things like this worry me. This article is heavily biased and thrown out into a public that is already wary of vaccinations (please don't get me wrong, I think the public SHOULD be wary of vaccines - after all it is something that is injected directly into the body...). Of course everyone is going to be saying "oh there is the proof!" but not analysing the evidence.

How many people actually go and look at these studies from the references provided? How many people actually have ACCESS to the ORIGINAL papers that this article was based off of? Its really scary looking at this...

This rant wasn't directed at anyone here, its just something that I have come to notice since beginning my work in the science community. I just hate it so much that people do not have free access to many of the studys that were conducted (from vet med. to human med.). The general public can be so misinformed just from mass media and the inability to access the origianl study.

Anyway, I would agree with the titre thing, and think that that is definitely the way to go - after all if the vaccine is not needed then why waste it?
 
This is the program I follow for my cats, I printed it out and brought it to my vet. He lets us practice this.
http://www.catvets.com/professionals/gu ... ns/?Id=176

Carnage reacts a bit to his vaccines. It doesn't make him sick but he gets a lump at his vaccine site that sticks around for about a month afterward. When I spoke to one of my other vets about this they said "That's why we vaccinate in the leg" hence it can be removed if something goes wrong.... I'm sorry but I can't do that every year to my boy knowing that it may develop into something more. The only reason I even vaccinate my indoor cats is because Carnage actually goes out every once and a while (on leash), and because I volunteer at the shelter and who knows what those cats may have (even if they're vaccinate before adoption).

As for dogs. I don't know what we'll be doing with our regime. I know puppy shots are essential, and I'm thinking we'll get our puppy series and a booster at a year. Then we might do one more shot again at age six. Heartworm is the new thing I've started to examine. As I'm unsure if that stuff is safe... It's not a big issue as we still have a year to think about it.
 
vaccines do not last a life time in dogs, esp parvo virus. we have seen several dogs that were done 1-2 times as a puppy and later in adult hood contract parvo. we honour people wanting to do every 2 yrs for distemper/parvo/hepatitis(combo vaccine) that is not unreasonable. we aslo can do just parvo vaccine and not the combo.
also bordatella does not last much longer then 6-8 months. in 16 yrs of working in the field i have seen 2 anaphalyaxis in dogs, 1 fibrosarcoma.
have seen a couple dozen case of autoimmune hemalytic anemia only rarely was it linked to vaccines.
there is also quite a difference between live, modified live and killed and how they affect the host. with most of our smaller breeds we always split the vaccines up too.
distemper is a horrible disease and it hasnt been diagosed in our pets in eons because of vaccines.

that artcle did not have any of the actual data from the study which wouldve been an interesting read!
 
quite common to have a "lump" at the site of vaccines due to the fact the body is reacting to the vaccine. usually just means its working.

sausage4ever said:
This is the program I follow for my cats, I printed it out and brought it to my vet. He lets us practice this.
http://www.catvets.com/professionals/gu ... ns/?Id=176

Carnage reacts a bit to his vaccines. It doesn't make him sick but he gets a lump at his vaccine site that sticks around for about a month afterward. When I spoke to one of my other vets about this they said "That's why we vaccinate in the leg" hence it can be removed if something goes wrong.... I'm sorry but I can't do that every year to my boy knowing that it may develop into something more. The only reason I even vaccinate my indoor cats is because Carnage actually goes out every once and a while (on leash), and because I volunteer at the shelter and who knows what those cats may have (even if they're vaccinate before adoption).

As for dogs. I don't know what we'll be doing with our regime. I know puppy shots are essential, and I'm thinking we'll get our puppy series and a booster at a year. Then we might do one more shot again at age six. Heartworm is the new thing I've started to examine. As I'm unsure if that stuff is safe... It's not a big issue as we still have a year to think about it.
Click to expand...
 
oh oh oh i forgot my biggest pet peeve!!! the line you get when the cat/dog is now older and coming in for euthanasia and is so emaciated you wonder how they didnt die already or blue and werent able to breathe properly for 2 days
"but they have been sooo healthy" obviously something has not been right for awhile!!
so i am an advocate for yearly exams esp in our aging pets even if you decide to not vacinate.
 
I know it's common and vaccine-site sarcoma are not as common but still. When you're a rat person and you see a lump it'll always bug you.
I make sure my cats go to the vet when they're sick, not a yearly check up. I do a proper once over once a month on my cats and as soon as we notice something out of sorts I can take them in. I find a yearly check up isn't really enough, cuz honestly how much does it suck to have to bring you pet back in a week after their annual because they hurt something even though last week at their check up they were fine and healthy.
I'm thinking we'll get blood work done once a year too, at least Aroow is getting that in her old age.
 
theratlady said:
oh oh oh i forgot my biggest pet peeve!!! the line you get when the cat/dog is now older and coming in for euthanasia and is so emaciated you wonder how they didnt die already or blue and werent able to breathe properly for 2 days
"but they have been sooo healthy" obviously something has not been right for awhile!!
so i am an advocate for yearly exams esp in our aging pets even if you decide to not vacinate.
Click to expand...

My dad let my cat (well, the family cat) hemorrhage without telling me (I was not living at home). When he told me I left work right away, drove home (opposite direction of my home where i was living at the time) and rushed him into the vet. My dad was trusted with my cat for 24 hours... JUST 24 hours. And the vet told me he had probably been bleeding for that long. I worked for my dad at the time, and had seen him all day. He had many oppertunities to tell me - like prehaps first thing int he morning when I said good morning. He almost fired me for leaving to take him to the vet. Nice huh?

This was 3 years ago now. And I still would never trust my dad with anything living. I can't believe people would ever do something like this, but it was a true wake up call when my dad did it.

He used the "but he was healthy" line on me that day when I gave him h*** for not taking him to the vet as soon as he saw the blood. Thats what made me remember this...

Also a lesson for those out there who think they can trust people wiht their animals. Even if they say they will look after them - if they dont like animals. DO NOT leave them with them.

I kick myself for trusting him.

Sorry, A bit off topic, but a good lesson
 

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