Vaccines - Page 1

Explain the purpose of these two Vaccines and how often they are required.

Lepto 4 Vaccine,
is for a two year old.

DA2PL CPV CV Vaccine,
is for a four year old.

Vet recommendations.



Moons.

 Moons,

Leptospirosis is a vaccine that is for that same disease. It is not an uncommon disease. It is contracted when infected wildlife or cattle, pigs, horses, rodents or other dogs urinate and contaminate water that a dog then drinks. Mice are good vectors for this, meaning they also carry and leave infected urine. In dogs, the disease usually presents with acute kidney and/or liver failure and it can easily kill a dog. If a dog survives, it can leave the dog's organs impaired for life. There are several servovars, meaning strains of the the bacteria that can cause the disease. It can be passed to humans from the infected water, or rarely from dog to human contact. The bacteria can be carried for a long time in the body, and that makes it even more difficult to eradicate. One problem with the vaccine is that it only protects against the more common strains. So a dog can be vaccinated and become ill with another strain. Also, the vaccine does not seem to give especially long-lasting protection. Another problem with older vaccines is that they were the ones implicated in adverse reactions in dogs. About 2% of dogs vaccinated years ago had trouble, but the newer vaccines do not seem to have so many adverse reactions. If you feed your dogs outside, or in areas contaminated by mice, or allow your dogs to go where other dogs or wildlife are present, it is a risk. The bacteria is ubiquitous in the environment. So your decision to vaccinate for that should rest on the risk. I have a client who almost lost her dog because of this infection, and he will be impaired for life, although he was treated and his life saved. I do not vaccinate for this because my risk factors are not high.

The other vaccine is for distemper, adenovirus type 2, hepatitis, leptospirosis, parainfluenza, parvovirus and coronavirus. This is a vaccine given routinely for pups, several times, and then periodically as a booster. I usually give this every three years and if a client boards, I accept that schedule. However, I require bordetella (kennel cough) every 6 months for any dog being boarded here. And I give bordetella to my own kennel dogs every year or so. Boarded dogs are at high risk for this highly contagious disease and if  a client's dog went home having acquired it here (or so they think), they would not return. I have never had any such disease here fortunately and never sent home a dog who was ill.

I don't want to get into the argument of whether to vaccinate or not.  As you know, many people here think it the most evil thing in the world leading to a plethora of diseases like cancer and immune disorders. That is not my belief. Again, you will make your own decision about this, but that is what the vaccines are for. I do vaccinate my dogs, all my dogs, for most of these illnesses, except I use a vaccine without lepto. I use combination vaccines without problems but some people like to separate the vaccines. I do not vaccinate without vet assistance for rabies (although I could), simply because I want a formal written record by a professional to exist should I ever have an incident where I would have to prove a dog was vaccinated.

I hope this helps. If you like, PM me with other questions.

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=2+2115&aid=950

This is a decent chart that has length of effectiveness and efficacy along with risk of side effects.  I tend to err on the side of the least number of vaccines necessary, but I've had bad experiences with side effects (seizures).  Our vet used to recommend everything every year with the exception of rabies, but that's changed in the last few years so that they're alternated - no more than 3 at once. 

You'll probably get as many opinions as there are vets.  There was one nutcase that was trying to rehome a dog on craigslist here who hadn't vaccinated their dog for anything because they didn't "believe" in it.  I understand religious objection in people, but in dogs?


Opal

Check out the Neotech website for what I believe to be the most effective an safest vaccines/vaccination protocol available. These vaccines over-ride mternal antibodiies, confer early immunity, and avoid vaccinosis risks.

http://www.neotechvaccines.com/neopar.htm

http://www.neotechvaccines.com/NEOTECH_CoreVaccineSchedule.pdf

http://www.neotechvaccines.com/NEOTECHCoreVaccines.pdf

Iff you choose to use more traditional vaccines and  for further discussion of vaccines, you may find this link useful:

http://www.doglogic.com/vaccineinfo.htm#news

does anyone know why the Merial vaccines are so expensive??

The lepto vaccine nearly killed one of our Poms.

What would be the scheduled ages and intervals for these shots normally?

These reminders came with my dogs Rabies shot reminders on little bunny post cards.

I keep all dogs up to date and was only wondering if the other shots were due at those ages.

This particular vets always puts on a hard high presure sell, anything and everything.

I don't plan on any of these shots until the pups are out of the picture at the end of the month.


Moons.

Opal, lol, I doubt it was really religious reasons that caused her not to vaccinate. The fact is in our giant police state, currently, you have to make yourself sound like a religious nutcase in order to be permitted to make your own decision when it comes to vaccines. If she doesn't claim religion, she gets accused of neglect, when in fact, she's probably just had bad experiences and might care about her dogs very much.

There are things I don't want my son getting, and the only legal way I can avoid them is for religious reasons, which have of course nothing to do with it, since I'm on the highway to hell anyway, but you can bet I'll be born-again when it comes time to sign those papers, LOL.

Moons, have you looked at Dr. Jean Dodd's site? The more progressive vets have been transitioning to this ever so slowly.

Jenni-
The thing that got me about the craigslist was that the dog hadn't even had rabies vaccinations, which is the only vaccine required here by law.  The writing style also suggested that the person was a little "off."

Trust me, there are some vaccines that I don't want my kids getting either.  A few of the newer ones have been heavily pushed by the manufacturers despite the fact that the research is inconclusive about effectiveness and adverse events have been misreported. 

It's so hard to make an informed decision when you know you're not getting all the information!!

Opal