ProHeart 6 - Page 2

Easy there Joan. What insult? Try reading without the chip on your shoulder.

Good post Ginabel.  Vet bashing on dog forums has always been a strange observance of mine, too.

Reggie,

I too, agree with you that all decisions are ultimately with the owner. However, we all seek advice to help us make informed decisions. Having a vet that I trust is a vital one for this type of instance being the average pet owner that I am.

The risk assessment is one we all weigh in the end. Also, If someone feels competent to adminsiter shots properly, having correct technique, or not, I don't think that is the reason for the stricter protocol with the administering of this preventative. 

It seems clear to me that to allay past fears, the specific guidelines that make this product different than previous products are under tight scrutiny. I imagine, since Pfizer acquired the drug, and made the changes to the suspected allergen solvents in the manufacturing, and showing that the reactions declined, this is not well known. Bubba's post is ranting against the original manufacturer.

The relaunch protocol is simply a proactive step to inform and make sure the users are informed and compliant and not relying on old information. For instance, I would have thought I would still have to sign a form if all I had done was read Joan's first post. 

I can see the convience of a 6 month shot could be appealing. 

 

I've never used ProHeart. Have used  ivermectin sheep drench cut with propylene glycol for years. I didn't really worry too much about h-worms when I lived in PA, only used a preventative during the summer. Now that I'm in FL it's a big concern. Still I only give it every other month year round and think that every 3 months would probably be adequate. When Bev reaches 10 I probably won't give it to her at all.  I'm not big on injectable h-worm or flea preventatives or vaccines in general. I never deworm routinely. Why do people assume their adults dogs should get dewormed every 4,5  months when few adult dogs ever have internal parasites unless, as Joanro said, they eat something that carries tapes (or have fleas).

After losing my first GSD to leukemia I tend to err on the side of caution with my dogs where vacs are concerned. He had annual rabies vaccines, kennel cough, parvo, etc. Developed severe allergies at 8 months of age. 2 weeks after a nasal kennel cough vac (insisted on by the boarding kennel) he developed a chronic bacterial sinusitis, had 2 surgeries, still sneezed mucus and blood the remainer of his short life. Coincidence? Maybe, but I'm not taking the chance again.

Bee, not reading your post with a chip on my shoulder, but reading it as you wrote it.....implying that it would be something I would use if I didn't need to be "certified" to poison my dog. That's not accurate and after my post stating the reasons I wouldn't use it is just par.

Thank you all again for sharing your thoughts and experiences about ProHeart6. As I mentioned in my OP, I was doing research on the product, I wanted point of views from those who were not swayed towards this product because of any money making involved.

Again, thank you all for sharing your options. As for me, I am sticking to my current heartworm preventive plan for my dogs :-) 

*Opinions

I am lucky enough to live in a spot where heartworm risk is very very low so while I test for heartworm I do not treat. I also do not routinely use the once amonth topical flea and tick control products because I view that as posioning the system

I have always been cautious about vaccines trying not to use the 17 at once products and spreading out between individual vaccines. Rabies is always by itself and I do NOT give it at 4 months ( I wait as long as possible) and then only give what I absolutely have to. When my dogs reach 6 or 7 with the blessings of my vets vaccines are stopped.

Most of my dogs live to a heealthy 13 or 14. Mr. Nemo who has not had a vaccine or rabies shot since he was 6 is heading for the big 16 on August 15th. Perhaps some of what I do has played a role in that ( tho he also has good genetics - his Dad Lasso lived to a healthy 15).

TIG .. you got it .. I come from a pesticide research and use background as a research scientist .. the 24 months a year heartworm treatments would be laughed out of the room with profession pest management people .. it is a scam to generate profits and is not necessary but worst of all harmful.  Your vaccination schedule is also spot on and what I do as well.  The yearly booster vaccine has finally met it's end hopefully but it was also a scam and not based on biology .... and thanks to vaccine researchers like Jean Dodds raising funds and doing the research the vaccine companies want suppressed or discredited the painted veil is being pulled back on the ugly face of the scheduled rabies vaccine treatments.  Vaccine requirements and obligatory laws drive patients through the veterinarians front door and while they are there they will sell you some heartworm and flea/tick products.  Maybe a $5 microchip for $30 and a bag of $40 Science Diet "corn in a bag" will complete your vet visit and you go home with a lot less money and your dog is worse off than before the visit.  It is a perfect storm of politics and political biology that equals profits.  The problem is that for you and your dog it is most often a lose/lose situation.  Professional pesticide and IPM scientists don't treat on a schedule and they don't treat when the pests are not present.  They also do not treat when the cure is worse than the risks.

Years ago on the web I stumbled into a job board for veterinarians. Still no idea how I got there or got in since it was a member board but I noticed my local emergency vet had posted a job opening. It was for a part time veterinarian ( 2 or 3 days a week if memory serves) with a salary of $150k but with the promise that the salary could easily be doubled ( $300,000) with the revenue from "product placement" ( their words not mine)

An eye opener - not only the food, the chemicals, the overpriced prescriptions but to achieve that kind o revenue from "product placement" they have to be pushing a lot of sketchy expensive procedures.

I thank god have a wonderful vet who is a true animal person and while his practice is primarily companion animals he still does his cows cause he was brought up on a cattle ranch. This brings a pragmatism and willingness to understand that for some of us cost control is essential to his work which you don't find in younger vets. He also doesn't buy in to the newest latest fads and politically correct bs. I nearly fell off my chair when discussing whether to spay an older bitch  and he said to me " you know statistics tell us intact animals live longer than nuetered ones". At last a vet that does not view reproductive organs as a disease and insteads sees them and the hormones they bring as a normal essential part of a healthy animal.

BTW re vaccines. When parvo first raised it's ugly head ( yes I'm dating myself) breeders felt that the early vaccines affected fertility but we were pooh poohed and told not to worry. The Guide dog school in England however set out to determine if it was casuing a problem and they did find that the vaccines were causing lowered fertility in males and in bitches - smaller litters, lost pups, stillborns. As a result they changed their vaccination schedule ( this was back in the 1980's). Males were given the inital vaccines as a pup and the one year booster. From that time on they only had titer levels checked. 90% never needed another booster. The 10% that did need occasional boosters - the suspicion was that their immune system was not as robust. With bitches they felt that had to vaccinate to give litters maternal immunity but there is also the problem of that immunity blocking a vaccine if it persists into the normal pup vaccination period. So instead of vaccinating 2 -3 months before a breeding which was the usual practice for many back then they switched to vaccinating the brood bitch several months after her last litter. This way there would be sufficint maternal antibodies present for the next litter since it would be less than a year from vaccination but not enough antibodies to block pups vaccination. The associated fertility problems also disappeared with the new regime.

Lesson is when you are pooh poohed - do some research.

Unfortunately it is a lot worse than that as they say.  Research is driven by grant money and as we as a nation (USA) have decided dropping bombs on goat herders in Afghanistan and sending humans to Mars is more important than most other things on Earth research funds for basic research has been cut from governmental budgets.  In steps industry to "fill the void" with "targeted" research grants.  Those researchers who reliably produce research results for industry which support their sale and promotion of products get a big pitcher full of research grants.  Those researchers who produce conflicting or unreliable data which does not support the industry's need for results supporting their product claims get a tiny sip of research funds in a shot glass.  So guess what kind of research gets done and what kind of results get published.  Interesting that the data and results on vaccine adverse effects came from the UK.  In the USA you would never get public or private funding from most universities to do adverse effects research on any vaccine unless of course the study was set up to prove vaccines safe by design.  Even if you were able to get the research done showing that vaccines caused adverse effects (which they do) you would never get it published in a US based scientific journal as anyone publishing anything negative about vaccines in the USA will be black listed by both government and industry funding in the future.  Governments around the world have invested so much money and have lied so convincingly for so long about the safety of vaccines that they have no fallback plan to pin the blame on someone else.  Cigarettes once again serve as an example of how industry and government can collude for decades to hide the truth and protect industry profits at the expense of human and animal health.  The newer recombinant vaccines are certainly safer than those produced with conventional methods yet you never hear a word from government or industry about improved safety of recombinant vaccines.  Why??  We have been told for decades that the old conventional vaccines were 100% safe and effective so how can a new vaccine based on recombinant production methods be safer or more effective than 100% ???  The governments have painted themselves into a corner with the lies from the 1950's and 1960's about vaccine safety and nobody from government or the vaccine industry wants to be the first to say they were feeding us lies then because most of those " experimental subjects" are still alive and can vote or sue for the injuries and diseases those vaccines caused.  Again the cigarette industry is the poster child of how the vaccine industry has done business.  Maybe vaccines are not as bad as cigarettes but as the Chinese say "it is too soon to tell".