I asked my vet about shots today!
My vet is a fairly new graduate and so I asked her and the vet tech what they thought about giving less shots. Now this woman said she went to school in California and there is a big movement to NOT vaccinate as often out there. She also said that there isn't enough data to substantiate giving vaccines every 7 years! I told her I was talking 3-4 years...she does not believe that dogs need as many shots as they get but it does depend what and why as she doesn't give her dogs kennel cough because they will never be anyplace but at her home (she sited the dog insurance covers all these shots I have never even heard of).Sounds like pharmaceutical companies everywhere! We talked about the basic shots also and there again she thought that people and situations are all different but believes in the rabies (my dogs get a 3 year rabies every 2 years) and then distemper yearly and a couple more because I breed! I do this because we live in the country and have racoons,stray dogs and feral cats...so if my dogs/cats never left a fence it would be one thing but they do occasionally run into some animal that could be sick. If my cats get older and don't go out I would not vaccinate them BUT they do!
What do you do and why?
What do you do and why?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nancy and Harley on
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My 4 year old, Bo, gets his rabies and distemper shots every year. That's what my vet recommends. Harley got all of his puppy shots last year (he will be a year old in May), and he will get his rabies and distemper every year (a year from the date of the last shot). We never board Bo, so he doesn't need his Kennel Cough. But, we take Harley to day care occasionally and have boarded him before, so he will get his every year.
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Permalink Reply by Alice on
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In our area vets used to recommend Parvo/Distemper every year but they have since learned that it is not necessary to give them so often. Many believe that even every 3 years is too often but that seems to be the new safe interval. Rabies of course depends on what your state requires but truly, Distemper and Parvo do not need to be administered yearly.
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Permalink Reply by Susan Beans on
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Why are you giving a 3 year Rabies shot every 2 years? Is it required by law in your area? If not, don't give more than once every 3 years, more often will not make the vaccine more effective, but it will increase the chance of vaccine related problems. As some of the other posts have mentioned, there are studies to see if the vaccine is effective for 7 years. Some believe that the vaccine could possibly last a lifetime. You can also check something called "titers" to see if your dogs are still immune to Rabies. My guy was vaccinated for rabies at least once, probably twice, by the time we got him as a rescue at the age of 1 1/2. I plan to vaccinate him one more time, probably when he is 7 or 8.
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Permalink Reply by Jane Christensen on
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I plan on talking to the vet again. I will have to check what the state or law requires BUT I am thinking that I will also go to every 3 years! I might have to check with our kennel club to see what they require for classes!
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Permalink Reply by Aber, Ragnar and Kelso on
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Or more to the point--why a 3 year Rabies shot every single year? Couldn't that result in some damage to the dog?
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Permalink Reply by Shippo & Koga Corgis on
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I only do rabies, distemper, and parvo every 3 years, after 1 year boosters of course. Anything else for my area is pretty much unnecessary.
Shippo's breeder told me to stay away from the lepto vaccine... that it was causing a lot of problems in dogs, especially corgis... dunno how true that is... a lot of people seem to get it done anyway...
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Lepto is responsible for more adverse reactions than most if not all other vaccines available for dogs. It is also not very effective and ideally is given every 6 months. My vet no longer includes this in their list of recommended vaccines for this reason.
There is a breeder in my area (she has a doctorate in animal nutririon) who has had lepto go through her kennel before and still won't vaccinate against it because the vaccine is so ineffective and problematic. She feels that recognizing the early symptoms and treating promptly is a better choice.
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Permalink Reply by Carla on
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Sorry to re-open this thread, but I have a question about Rabies Vaccination that hopefully someone can enlighten me on. Casey got a rabies vaccination last December. I received a letter in the mail yesterday indicating that she was due for another rabies vaccination (an "annual" one it says) next month.
Are there different types of vaccines (ie - a yearly type, a 3 year type, etc)?
From what I've read, yearly seems excessive (and it's something like $90 to get it done), but I'm wondering if they're giving a different kind of vaccine that would need to be done yearly? Or is the first year a booster, and then it's only every 3 years after that?
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Permalink Reply by Sam Tsang on
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There is a 1 year and a 3 year vaccine, no difference. Some province / states requires annual vaccination, the very 1st rabies vaccine your dog receive is only good for one year. After the initial 12-month booster,
check with your local requirement.
Cats = recombinant rabies vaccine.
Dogs = killed vaccine.
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Permalink Reply by Kristy Watkins on
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Although I respect all of you who don't vaccinate your dogs "ever" I will never be this way, and I will tell you why. When I lived with my parents, they had about 7 dogs. one was 13 years old and the rest were 4 years old and under. During this time, every dog was vaccinated every time the vet prescribed (old style vet). The last dog they bought, a Yorkie male. I convinced them to try the low-vax method. He was vacc'd twice with a combo as a puppy (including parvo, bordatella, lepto etc.) and once with rabies at 7 months old. Our house had never had parvo in it. Suddenly one day he was "depressed" and didn't want to eat. We thought nothing of it. The next day he was vomiting and had bloody mucosal diarrhea. Within hours he had died. He had done nothing different than ANY of our other dogs but gotten less vaccines, they had all gone the same places, met the same dogs, ate the same food. The only difference was less shots. And so I will never again advocate LESS vaccines.
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Permalink Reply by John Wolff on
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Was the cause of death firmly established/diagnosed?
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Yes, it was parvovirus. Fortunately the house burned down and my parents moved, so there's no risk of any of the other dogs getting it. How he caught it is we (the humans) went to a seedy pet store where there were some pomeranian puppies, the puppies were rumored to have died of parvo after being purchased (we didn't buy any or anything, only looked and came home.) He caught it from us having been at that petstore.
Edit: of course we did not find out about the poms dying until we mentioned it to our vet "you know, I've had a couple of poms in here with parvo before you guys came in". And of course we thought nothing of visiting strange dogs and coming home, since all of our dogs were over 6 months old and "adequately vacc'd" Turned out wrong.
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