Vaccination: Frequency, Spacing And Supplies.

[Cuban]

I seek a discussion and points of view/experience relating to persistence of vaccination-immunity in dogs and their vaccination intervals.

I know the natural variance in pathogen mutation and the original vaccination's effectiveness will affect protection and outcome of any exposure to a disease, it's not an exact science from what I have read. But I am looking for some common-sense best practice from the dog's/owner's point of view, as this is not quite the same as the default recommendation from product or service providers: who have a financial motive along with other driving factors when selling a service. My natural suspicion is that a one year vaccination interval is based on the idea of an annual service for a car, for example. With many human vaccinations being effectively valid for a lifetime after a second booster, I can not see why a dog (lifespan ~10 years) needs one every year. Is the vaccinate for dogs made so weak that it is only offering months of protection? from what I've read I'm not the first to be somewhat cynical about pet-drug company's motives in promoting a slick lifetime care program for injecting your pet.

The most recent similar thread that did not seem to reach a conclusion is [url="[/url] so I seek others point of view and experiences.

My thoughts are brought into focus by a recent death of a otherwise healthy two year old dog in the village. Not one of ours but a similar mixed breed. I know some breads seem to be more susceptible to some diseases than others, in this case I am not talking about hip-dysplasia or similar, but communicable infectious diseases.

Some of the ideas that I have collected during my studies include:

Use of an appropriate dose of an antihistamine (One occasion that a human drug cane be used for a dog: Benadryl) prior to administering a vaccination, the objective being to limit the body shock if any from a new strain of vaccination or other unexpected reaction.

Whenever possible I have administered injections to our dogs, I would like to buy supplies from a vet and if anyone else has done this did you encounter any problems? I was not around this year (annual!) for their rabies inoculation so the big brave man stood by the fence and my wife did our three dogs, no problem. As an aside when I did ours and 30 other dogs in the village last year I gave our 5Kg dog a half-dose of the rabies vaccination, there is a lot of write ups about appropriate dose vs dog weight, and as I was helping with all the other dogs in the village it was easy to control this myself.

Being the first time I was handling other people's dogs in this way I understood why the "recommendation" is to inject in the tent of skin held at the back of the neck. A firm grip there limits the dog's ability to bite you, but seems to contribute to rapid fatalities when the injection site co-insides with a tumour so close to head, heart, spine and lungs. I have read that a leg is a preferable injection site as a dog can survive an amputated leg but not an amputated spine. Makes sense to me.

So as ours have just had their rabies vaccination, I believe that there should be a two week interval before another vaccination is administered??

Next, I have not tried but I would imagine that obtaining vaccination supplies is easy from some vet/shops?

I think that the anti-body test is the standard to see if a vaccination has been effective when administered but is that needed to or reliable to see if a booster is needed after X years? Would a similar test on a human indicate persistence of immunity for tetanus after ten years for example?

(POI: Ours are 3 year old Rottweiler cross, are about 40Kg and fed a BARF diet.)

Some useful translated (c/o Google) words:

Vaccination - การฉีดวัคซีน

Canine Parvo virus - ไวรัส Parvo สุนัข

Distemper - อารมณ์ร้าย

Rabies - พิษสุนัขบ้า

Syringe - เข็มฉีดยา

Any others ...?

[dotx]

When I lived in the States, I didn't vaccinate my pets every year (except rabies). Even my vet there (who was into homeopathic medicine) suggested to skip a year. He said vaccinating every year was too much, partly because big cities (I lived in NYC) are basically free of many of the contagious diseases the vaccines are for.

Since I moved to Southeast Asia, I've been vaccinating my animals every year. One of the reasonings behind skipping vaccines (according to my NYC vet) was that the chances of encountering the virus were not that big in the city, where there are few stray dogs and basically everybody takes care of his animals. Things are different here. Tons of soi dogs. Even the dogs that are pets don't get regular vaccination. I think the risk is too big, especially because nobody seems to have a straight answer as to whether we should vaccinate yearly or not.

The only time I skipped vaccines in Southeast Asia was when I was living in Vietnam. One of my dogs had a very sick liver and he was undergoing treatment for it. My vet there (she was from Denmark) told me to forget the vaccines and keep the dog inside. Her reasoning was "your dog's liver doesn't need any extra pain/work right now." As soon as he was ok, though, he got the vaccines.

In general, I'm not a big fan of vaccines (human or animals), but I think the risk is too big here.

[meatboy]

heartworm big killer if untreated protect,heartguard tabs,we have injection once every 2months.