Vaccinations
Are we doing too much too soon?
VACCINES: RISKS vs BENEFITS
~Reprinted with Permission~ As a Homeopathic practitioner and holistic breeder of Australian Cattle Dogs for the past 16 years, I believe that the first thing that needs changing is the myth that vaccines are not harmful. The bodies of animals and humans have a tremendous capacity to detoxify poisons but they have a limit! The limit is exceeded with toxins from the vaccines, overuse of antibiotics, poor quality foods, and exposure to environmental toxins prevent the animal's immune system from being naturally challenged and strengthened. This is the main reason we see a dramatic increase in allergies, organ failures, behavioural problems in our pets. "Vaccinosis" is the reaction from common vaccines against the immune system and general well being.
Over the years I have been information gathering on this subject and I truly received an education.
The thinking among Homeovets is that the rabies vaccine is not a one-year or three-year vaccine but that it could easily last ten years or the lifetime of the dog! It has just never been tested. It is however manufactured to be effective for three years but Canadian law requires a yearly vaccine! That means that every year your dog is getting whopped with a triple strength of the so-called one-year vaccine. Your dog's immune system will only produce so many rabies antibodies. After a time her immune system will become stressed from battling the rabies virus, weakening it and leaving your dog vulnerable to other illness. Rabies vaccinosis can manifest in aggressive behaviour, self mutilation, seizures, to the eating of undigestive items including their own stools. If possible avoid combination vaccines; these are shots which contain more than one vaccine. For example the typical DHLPP shot is a combination of distemper, hepatitis leptospirosis, parainfluenza and parvo. Wow! That gives your dog's immune system five different diseases to suddenly try and battle. Where would this ever occur naturally? Plus, this assault avoids the body's first line of defences, by bypassing the mucosal immune system of the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems.
It is important to space the vaccines at least two weeks apart. Unless you live in a high risk area wait until your pup is at least five months old. By then the maternal antibodies will not interfere with the effectiveness of the vaccine, therefore he will only need each vaccine once. At one year of age your veterinarian can do an antibody titre test, which is a simple blood test that measures your dog's antibodies to a specific disease, such as parvo virus or distemper.
Never give a stressed or sick dog a vaccination. If your dog is suffering from allergies or fleas, or has skin problems, she is not in optimum health. Stress is also a factor to consider. If she has gone through an emotional trauma, for instance, a change of homes, new member in the family, give her a while to get adjusted to the new routine before getting vaccinations. Vaccine manufacturers recommend that only healthy dogs be vaccinated. How do you know whether or not his immune system is fully competent? How many owners know the genetic background of their pet? Do they know if their dog has relatives with epilepsy, thyroid disease etc? Keep in mind that taking a young puppy to the vet for shots could weaken its immune system for life, because his system was not fully developed, and he will no doubt be emotionally stressed, due to being recently weaned, and taken away from mother and littermates, placed with a stranger, into an unfamiliar environment. The last thing this poor pup needs added to all of those stressors is a "cocktail" vaccine.
High levels of stress can trigger autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, haemolytic lupus, and various skin diseases. In autoimmune diseases the immune system becomes confused and attacks the body.
In high stress situations the "fight or flight" instinct kicks in and shuts off the immune system. Imagine if she has just been stressed out of her mind with the car ride, her immune system is now shut down, she gets her "cocktail" vaccine of DHLPP and possibly even her rabies booster, gets back into the car, gets home, rolls on the grass treated with herbicides, pesticides, takes a drink of her water containing chlorides and fluorides, grabs a mouthful of cheap, over-processed, commercial, dog food full of preservatives, BHA, BHT, Ethoxyquin, dyes, by-products, including beaks and feathers, meat meal, possibly even containing road kill!
This type of stress is common in today's dog and in most cases the stage has been set for kidney, liver, heart disease, as well as arthritis and cancer.
For hyperactive dogs or the very sensitive dogs there are natural remedies to help relax and calm them. Herbal, Valerian is very good, given in small amounts, half of human dosage and there are numerous Homeopathic remedies, which depend on the symptoms. Also one can give B-Complex and magnesium to help treat stress.
In light of this new information I would suggest you educate yourself before you vaccinate...in any case it is the rabies vaccine that is not easily avoided especially if you cross the border. However, once again Homeopathy comes to the rescue. There are drainages available for vaccines, they help to balance the shock and potential damaging effects of the shots. Often I export show and breeding stock overseas and unfortunately the rabies vaccines is required. I give a homeopathic remedy before and after the vaccination. There are several excellent remedies which are wonderful for cleansing the effects of chemical drugs.
Joyce Redden, Reg. Homeopath
via the Internet
(See Alberta Activities for more on this topic-Ed.)
ALBERTA ACTIVITIES
~ By Shannon Scheer~
Ask your veterinarian what he thinks of vaccines and you will probably be met with a look that implies you are challenging his experience and knowledge. He will assure you vaccines are safe and they have tamed many diseases. Our standard of vaccinating starts with puppies from six to eight weeks receiving the combo vaccine. Maternal immunity starts to wane at this point-the colostrum that the puppies receive while nursing builds up their immune system. This immunity is known to last well into their eleventh week. Why then are we inoculating these diseases into our puppies starting as young as six weeks? Many breeders have discussed the topic of "titering"-getting puppies' white and red blood cells checked before inoculating-to see where their immune system is at. A bit more expensive but in the long run may save us all from over-inoculating.
Allergies, epilepsy, cancer, neurological damage, swelling of muscles and tissues, kidney failure-these are just some of the side effects that could be traced back to vaccines. One interesting column told of a vet who was treating a dog who had a cancerous tumour removed. The dog was doing well on holistic treatment when the panic call came in: the tumour was back, worse than before. Upon asking if the dog's environment had changed, was he back on commercial food, did you stop giving supplements, all answers were no. "Matter of fact" they responded, "our local vet told us just two weeks ago how great he was doing when we took him in for his annual vaccine."
Cancer does not occur in hosts with strong immune systems. Vaccines stress the immune system. If A creates B and B creates C, then A must also create C. There are many case histories to support this theory.
Vaccines were necessary to save the population in the face of epidemics. However, now we have too many adverse reactions. Maybe in a hundred years scientists will look back and think that the practice that we have now of introducing diseases into people and animals for the purpose of preventing these same diseases is pure foolishness.
The combination vaccine DHL is broken down into D for distemper, which in extreme cases leads to pneumonia or encephalitis. The H is for canine viral hepatitis. This attacks the liver or kidneys. The L is for leptospirosis, again attacking the kidney and can also be fatal. The vaccine for rabies is given separately but at the same time. Tho none of these diseases is extinct today, did the vaccines help or are the diseases self limited? Parvovirus went from being benign in the mid-seventies to a raging virus a decade later. Lyme disease was discovered in the early seventies also, infecting both humans and animals. Meanwhile the list of standard vaccines has more than doubled as the years go by. Various others are recommended, depending on the part of the country that you reside in. Jean Dodds has learned a mind-boggling fact about vaccines: to ensure efficacy, manufacturers for years have made vaccines ten times more potent than what is needed to challenge the immune system. If you can, perhaps persuading your vet to lower the dosage might be of some help. He may not agree, since he could lose his license for not administering the regular dose. Vaccines are controversial and will remain so until our attitudes and our laws change. A recent survey by one of the largest vaccine manufacturers of small animal vaccination practices (Pfizer) found 1,700 different vaccination recommendations for dogs and cats from veterinarians across the US.
What about vaccinations given to our veteran dogs? The last thing an aging immune system needs is more stress. For instance, a 13-year-old Golden Retriever. Why in God's name would you take him in for an annual vaccine/booster? He is already at the edge of his normal life-span. Would he really be in contact with any of the diseases he is being vaccinated for in the next year of his life? Canine distemper is usually found in younger dogs, tho some cases have been recorded in dogs around eight. In our over-zealousness we are vaccinating dogs twelve to sixteen years old who will never get distemper but who may well suffer negative effects from the vaccines. Jean Dodds' articles found on the Internet are very informative. Ask yourself-how often are you vaccinated throughout your life?
There are twenty-seven veterinary schools in North America who are in the process of changing their protocol for vaccinating dogs and cats. Some of the information provided will present ethical and economic challenges to vets and there will always be sceptics. Some organizations have come up with a political compromise suggesting vaccinations every three years to appease those who fear loss of income vs those concerned about potential side effects. Politics, traditions, or the doctors' economic wellbeing should not be a factor in a medical decision.
Dog and cat immune systems mature fully at six months. If a modified live virus vaccine is given after that age it produces an immunity which is good for the life of the pet (i.e. canine distemper, parvo). Not only are annual boosters for parvo and distemper unnecessary, they subject the pet to potential risks of allergic reactions and immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia.
Maternal immunity will neutralize the vaccine and little protection will be produced if puppies and kittens are vaccinated before the age of eight weeks. It is recommended that vaccines given two weeks apart suppress rather than stimulate the immune system. With a vaccine given sometime after six months of age (14 months is good) this will provide lifetime immunity.
There are no new strains of parvovirus as one manufacturer would like to suggest. The parvo vaccine provides cross-immunity for all types.
Hepatitis (adenovirus) is one of the agents known to be a cause of kennel cough. Only vaccines with CAV-2 should be used, as CAV-1 carry the risk of kidney damage.
When distemper and parvo are given in the series of 2, 3, and 4 months and again at one year with a modified live virus, puppies and kittens program memory cells that survive for life and provide lifelong immunity.
Bordetella parainfluenza (commonly called kennel cough) recommended for our show dogs, boarding dogs, etc: this is an intranasal vaccine which causes a more rapid onset of immunity with less chance of reaction. The immunity does not protect from every cause of kennel cough and is of short duration, 4 - 6 months.
Canine corona virus is only a disease of puppies (dogs can be well in three days without any treatment). Cornell and Texas A&M have only diagnosed one case each in the last seven years. Corona does not cause disease in adult dogs.
Leptospirosis vaccine is a common cause of adverse reactions in dogs. Lepto vaccine is immunosuppressive to puppies less than 16 weeks of age.
Most kennel operators require annual boosters. For years the pricing structure of vets has misled clients into thinking the value of an annual office visit was strictly in the shots. This is not true as we cannot emphasise enough the importance of a physical exam for early detection of treatable diseases. Once the initial series of distemper and parvo has been administered it is proven that the immunity from the MLV vaccines persist for life.
Studies done by the Colorado State College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences shows that the annual revaccination recommendation on the vaccine label is just that. It is not a legal requirement. Rabies is the only commonly used vaccine that is legally required. Even with some rabies vaccines, the label may be misleading in that a three year duration of immunity product may also be labelled and sold as a one year duration of immunity product. Their program recommends the standard three-shot series for puppies (parvovirus, adenovirus 2, parainfluenza, distemper) to include rabies only after sixteen weeks of age for dogs. They will then be boosted one year later, followed by a three-year booster.
Now for some input from our readers and what they do to keep their dogs healthy and happy:
"Thank Heavens Colorado came out with the once-every-three-years study. It gives reassurance to the average owner that they do not have to vaccinate every year. At our kennel we only do vaccinations for the standard combination of DHLPP. Our vaccinations are given sparingly to our adult dogs."
"I follow the Jean Dodds program for vaccinating and once the puppies are finished with their recommended puppy program, never vaccinate again except for rabies. I strongly feel they go to enough dog shows and are exposed to so much that they are naturally vaccinated. I do not ship before nine weeks and try to get them down to the States before three months. Puppies that are vaccinated with rabies between 3 and 4 months usually need a booster. Ideally, puppies' best time for rabies is after four months."
"I got involved with my breed back in '68. We only gave our dogs the 8-wk and 12-wk shot and then every year thereafter till the dog died. In the '80s we were advised to give 3, 4 and sometimes 5 or 6 shots over the course of a year. I remember getting one dog from New Mexico and at 12 weeks she had had three sets of combo shots and accompanying her was a vaccination routine set out for three more. I did not give those required shots till she was two years of age. She has still to this day odd problems, immuno deficient as well as neurological. I remember when they combined the distemper with lepto and one other vaccine. All of a sudden dogs were getting sick from another virus and they discovered parvo. So they developed the parvo vaccine. From there, we then had symptoms develop that were not exactly like parvo but with similarities. So all of a sudden we have (killed or live) vaccine combos. It seems that each time a vaccine is finalized, a new virus crops up from the possible symptoms that the combination creates and then another virus vaccine is developed to combat the disease. So are these vaccines worth it or not? I had a dog who went down severely after being given the lepto vaccine in the combo (I have not given the lepto vaccine in ten years). Symptoms were immune response, weakness in rear, temperature. As for rabies I never give a dog under one year a rabies shot. If I am shipping to the USA I ship with a 3 or 4 day window before the age of 12 weeks. It is in my contract that the puppy people are not to give any more combo shots till the age of 6 months. My dogs are guaranteed for life but if this is broken in the contract I void all guarantees. I have had many an argument over this; I refuse to bow to their demands and have advised people to do the same or find another vet. I am sure there are vets and breeders out there who feel the same as I. If I am breeding a bitch I vaccinate her three months before the heat cycle (without lepto) that way I know her titres are strong and when nursing, will pass this strength on to the puppies. I do not vaccinate beyond the age of seven. My dogs all live to ripe old ages."
"My puppies get one shot at 16 weeks and if really lucky will get another booster whey they go to their first show and that is it. We do not give corona or lepto and very rarely give rabies although we are on an acreage. My dogs are in compounds and do not run loose. People think I am a bad person because of this. I have lost two pups to unknown reasons (so the vets say) who had gone to new homes and the new owners had the vets update their shots with the kitchen sink and within 72 hours both puppies dropped dead. Their hearts were literally a mush pile. I blame the shots; the autopsies were a huge waste of time as they are never going to blame vaccinating. I have had parvo twice, both times when I lived in Calgary. The first time when I was doing the whole shot thing-six, eight, ten weeks etc-and they came down with it right after their third set. The other was a hand-raised litter with no natural immunity, so that was my fault. I also firmly believe that we are absolutely compromising our dogs' immune systems by all those shots, and over-vaccinating is the root of many skin and health problems, at least within my own breed. I was not aware auto immune problems were as rampant in other breeds as well. Thank you for enlightening us on the subject."
"After taking my litter of eight into the vet for their second set of shots, two weeks later they came down with parvo and I lost the whole litter. I had not been to a show in six months, nor had any contact with any other dogs other than my own. Had I stayed at home and not given my litter the second recommended shots, I feel they would not have been in contact with the parvovirus, even though they were just vaccinated for it."
"I know of a dog in the US that would get deathly ill about 2 wks after his vaccines. His owner and vet did not make the connection until it was almost too late. He was five and almost died. He never had a shot after that and lived to be 12. I personally haven't had or heard of the troubles you had, but from what I have read, I have only vaccinated at 8 wks, 6 mths and then every three years afterwards. I do not vaccinate after my dogs reach six years old. I just recently started giving rabies upon moving to an acreage. My vet is in agreement with me on all of these procedures but due to the other vets in the clinic and the cash cow that vaccines are, he cannot really say this out loud yet. There are several clinics in the southwest US who are now advocating shots every three years."
"I have had problems with vaccinations myself and I am sure the problem is not actually the shots but rather the puppies' reactions to them. I am pretty sure I have an autoimmune problem in my lines and am trying to get rid of it. It is not easy to see little puppies so swollen up from a reaction to a shot that they can hardly walk without crying in pain. I am very cautious about giving shots because of it. I do not give yearly boosters anymore to my adults. I only did parvo when there was an outbreak in my area. I give puppy series and those are separated out into distemper, adenovirus and parainfluenza only (no lepto or hepatitis). Parvo is done separately 2 wks later. I have been doing this for some time now. The most recent puppy to react to a shot I had put down because he would not come out of it. The autopsy showed an autoimmune reaction to the shot. Another litter went down after their DA2P shots. Some had diarrhoea, one blew up like a balloon. Looking back on my incidents they all occurred about a week to ten days after shots of some kind, however never after a rabies shot. I was told it is because rabies is a killed vaccine and all the others are modified live. Just think about it-you are totally bombarding your tiny puppies with five or six different diseases all at the same time. Some of them we don't even need to worry about. The biggest problem seems to be combining parvo with the others, which is why I recommend separating it out. I have done titre testing on a few of my pups. The tests after their first pair of shots showed full titre for parvo (after only one shot) but nothing for the DA2P. That's why I am not worried about giving the second parvo. After some of the shots, a few puppies showed really deformed fronts but were fine again within a couple of weeks, and no it wasn't bad breeding, these were basically great pups who grew deformed after their shots. A friend had a first-hand experience with vaccine problems when she lost half of two litters to parvo. Now she won't give shots till the pups are four months old and won't give the combinations at all. In fact, since I started splitting my shots quite a few breeders in town are doing it too. When I started, I had to buy all the shots myself, since they were a special order (the DA2P ones); now I don't have to because there are enough people doing it that the vets are stocking them as normal protocol."
***
So, if you have read all of the above, you can pretty much guess where we stand on over-vaccinating, ESPECIALLY when it concerns collies. I don't have experience with other breeds, obviously, but am passionate about the collies and their health. To this end, our own collies receive one four-way shot between 13 and 16 weeks, and occasionally another at six months, and that is IT. If it is a particularly hot summer and we are at a lot of shows, I will consider giving a straight parvo shot. The times that we have run into problems of the auto immune system are always when the dog had many shots as a puppy, and a yearly booster. It is just too much for a collie to take!!! So please, PLEASE, think twice before giving your collie that cocktail that your vet might recommend, and consider doing what your breeder asks you to. It just might save your collie from an auto immune problem.
***
Nancy
~ By Shannon Scheer~
Ask your veterinarian what he thinks of vaccines and you will probably be met with a look that implies you are challenging his experience and knowledge. He will assure you vaccines are safe and they have tamed many diseases. Our standard of vaccinating starts with puppies from six to eight weeks receiving the combo vaccine. Maternal immunity starts to wane at this point-the colostrum that the puppies receive while nursing builds up their immune system. This immunity is known to last well into their eleventh week. Why then are we inoculating these diseases into our puppies starting as young as six weeks? Many breeders have discussed the topic of "titering"-getting puppies' white and red blood cells checked before inoculating-to see where their immune system is at. A bit more expensive but in the long run may save us all from over-inoculating.
Allergies, epilepsy, cancer, neurological damage, swelling of muscles and tissues, kidney failure-these are just some of the side effects that could be traced back to vaccines. One interesting column told of a vet who was treating a dog who had a cancerous tumour removed. The dog was doing well on holistic treatment when the panic call came in: the tumour was back, worse than before. Upon asking if the dog's environment had changed, was he back on commercial food, did you stop giving supplements, all answers were no. "Matter of fact" they responded, "our local vet told us just two weeks ago how great he was doing when we took him in for his annual vaccine."
Cancer does not occur in hosts with strong immune systems. Vaccines stress the immune system. If A creates B and B creates C, then A must also create C. There are many case histories to support this theory.
Vaccines were necessary to save the population in the face of epidemics. However, now we have too many adverse reactions. Maybe in a hundred years scientists will look back and think that the practice that we have now of introducing diseases into people and animals for the purpose of preventing these same diseases is pure foolishness.
The combination vaccine DHL is broken down into D for distemper, which in extreme cases leads to pneumonia or encephalitis. The H is for canine viral hepatitis. This attacks the liver or kidneys. The L is for leptospirosis, again attacking the kidney and can also be fatal. The vaccine for rabies is given separately but at the same time. Tho none of these diseases is extinct today, did the vaccines help or are the diseases self limited? Parvovirus went from being benign in the mid-seventies to a raging virus a decade later. Lyme disease was discovered in the early seventies also, infecting both humans and animals. Meanwhile the list of standard vaccines has more than doubled as the years go by. Various others are recommended, depending on the part of the country that you reside in. Jean Dodds has learned a mind-boggling fact about vaccines: to ensure efficacy, manufacturers for years have made vaccines ten times more potent than what is needed to challenge the immune system. If you can, perhaps persuading your vet to lower the dosage might be of some help. He may not agree, since he could lose his license for not administering the regular dose. Vaccines are controversial and will remain so until our attitudes and our laws change. A recent survey by one of the largest vaccine manufacturers of small animal vaccination practices (Pfizer) found 1,700 different vaccination recommendations for dogs and cats from veterinarians across the US.
What about vaccinations given to our veteran dogs? The last thing an aging immune system needs is more stress. For instance, a 13-year-old Golden Retriever. Why in God's name would you take him in for an annual vaccine/booster? He is already at the edge of his normal life-span. Would he really be in contact with any of the diseases he is being vaccinated for in the next year of his life? Canine distemper is usually found in younger dogs, tho some cases have been recorded in dogs around eight. In our over-zealousness we are vaccinating dogs twelve to sixteen years old who will never get distemper but who may well suffer negative effects from the vaccines. Jean Dodds' articles found on the Internet are very informative. Ask yourself-how often are you vaccinated throughout your life?
There are twenty-seven veterinary schools in North America who are in the process of changing their protocol for vaccinating dogs and cats. Some of the information provided will present ethical and economic challenges to vets and there will always be sceptics. Some organizations have come up with a political compromise suggesting vaccinations every three years to appease those who fear loss of income vs those concerned about potential side effects. Politics, traditions, or the doctors' economic wellbeing should not be a factor in a medical decision.
Dog and cat immune systems mature fully at six months. If a modified live virus vaccine is given after that age it produces an immunity which is good for the life of the pet (i.e. canine distemper, parvo). Not only are annual boosters for parvo and distemper unnecessary, they subject the pet to potential risks of allergic reactions and immune-mediated haemolytic anaemia.
Maternal immunity will neutralize the vaccine and little protection will be produced if puppies and kittens are vaccinated before the age of eight weeks. It is recommended that vaccines given two weeks apart suppress rather than stimulate the immune system. With a vaccine given sometime after six months of age (14 months is good) this will provide lifetime immunity.
There are no new strains of parvovirus as one manufacturer would like to suggest. The parvo vaccine provides cross-immunity for all types.
Hepatitis (adenovirus) is one of the agents known to be a cause of kennel cough. Only vaccines with CAV-2 should be used, as CAV-1 carry the risk of kidney damage.
When distemper and parvo are given in the series of 2, 3, and 4 months and again at one year with a modified live virus, puppies and kittens program memory cells that survive for life and provide lifelong immunity.
Bordetella parainfluenza (commonly called kennel cough) recommended for our show dogs, boarding dogs, etc: this is an intranasal vaccine which causes a more rapid onset of immunity with less chance of reaction. The immunity does not protect from every cause of kennel cough and is of short duration, 4 - 6 months.
Canine corona virus is only a disease of puppies (dogs can be well in three days without any treatment). Cornell and Texas A&M have only diagnosed one case each in the last seven years. Corona does not cause disease in adult dogs.
Leptospirosis vaccine is a common cause of adverse reactions in dogs. Lepto vaccine is immunosuppressive to puppies less than 16 weeks of age.
Most kennel operators require annual boosters. For years the pricing structure of vets has misled clients into thinking the value of an annual office visit was strictly in the shots. This is not true as we cannot emphasise enough the importance of a physical exam for early detection of treatable diseases. Once the initial series of distemper and parvo has been administered it is proven that the immunity from the MLV vaccines persist for life.
Studies done by the Colorado State College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences shows that the annual revaccination recommendation on the vaccine label is just that. It is not a legal requirement. Rabies is the only commonly used vaccine that is legally required. Even with some rabies vaccines, the label may be misleading in that a three year duration of immunity product may also be labelled and sold as a one year duration of immunity product. Their program recommends the standard three-shot series for puppies (parvovirus, adenovirus 2, parainfluenza, distemper) to include rabies only after sixteen weeks of age for dogs. They will then be boosted one year later, followed by a three-year booster.
Now for some input from our readers and what they do to keep their dogs healthy and happy:
"Thank Heavens Colorado came out with the once-every-three-years study. It gives reassurance to the average owner that they do not have to vaccinate every year. At our kennel we only do vaccinations for the standard combination of DHLPP. Our vaccinations are given sparingly to our adult dogs."
"I follow the Jean Dodds program for vaccinating and once the puppies are finished with their recommended puppy program, never vaccinate again except for rabies. I strongly feel they go to enough dog shows and are exposed to so much that they are naturally vaccinated. I do not ship before nine weeks and try to get them down to the States before three months. Puppies that are vaccinated with rabies between 3 and 4 months usually need a booster. Ideally, puppies' best time for rabies is after four months."
"I got involved with my breed back in '68. We only gave our dogs the 8-wk and 12-wk shot and then every year thereafter till the dog died. In the '80s we were advised to give 3, 4 and sometimes 5 or 6 shots over the course of a year. I remember getting one dog from New Mexico and at 12 weeks she had had three sets of combo shots and accompanying her was a vaccination routine set out for three more. I did not give those required shots till she was two years of age. She has still to this day odd problems, immuno deficient as well as neurological. I remember when they combined the distemper with lepto and one other vaccine. All of a sudden dogs were getting sick from another virus and they discovered parvo. So they developed the parvo vaccine. From there, we then had symptoms develop that were not exactly like parvo but with similarities. So all of a sudden we have (killed or live) vaccine combos. It seems that each time a vaccine is finalized, a new virus crops up from the possible symptoms that the combination creates and then another virus vaccine is developed to combat the disease. So are these vaccines worth it or not? I had a dog who went down severely after being given the lepto vaccine in the combo (I have not given the lepto vaccine in ten years). Symptoms were immune response, weakness in rear, temperature. As for rabies I never give a dog under one year a rabies shot. If I am shipping to the USA I ship with a 3 or 4 day window before the age of 12 weeks. It is in my contract that the puppy people are not to give any more combo shots till the age of 6 months. My dogs are guaranteed for life but if this is broken in the contract I void all guarantees. I have had many an argument over this; I refuse to bow to their demands and have advised people to do the same or find another vet. I am sure there are vets and breeders out there who feel the same as I. If I am breeding a bitch I vaccinate her three months before the heat cycle (without lepto) that way I know her titres are strong and when nursing, will pass this strength on to the puppies. I do not vaccinate beyond the age of seven. My dogs all live to ripe old ages."
"My puppies get one shot at 16 weeks and if really lucky will get another booster whey they go to their first show and that is it. We do not give corona or lepto and very rarely give rabies although we are on an acreage. My dogs are in compounds and do not run loose. People think I am a bad person because of this. I have lost two pups to unknown reasons (so the vets say) who had gone to new homes and the new owners had the vets update their shots with the kitchen sink and within 72 hours both puppies dropped dead. Their hearts were literally a mush pile. I blame the shots; the autopsies were a huge waste of time as they are never going to blame vaccinating. I have had parvo twice, both times when I lived in Calgary. The first time when I was doing the whole shot thing-six, eight, ten weeks etc-and they came down with it right after their third set. The other was a hand-raised litter with no natural immunity, so that was my fault. I also firmly believe that we are absolutely compromising our dogs' immune systems by all those shots, and over-vaccinating is the root of many skin and health problems, at least within my own breed. I was not aware auto immune problems were as rampant in other breeds as well. Thank you for enlightening us on the subject."
"After taking my litter of eight into the vet for their second set of shots, two weeks later they came down with parvo and I lost the whole litter. I had not been to a show in six months, nor had any contact with any other dogs other than my own. Had I stayed at home and not given my litter the second recommended shots, I feel they would not have been in contact with the parvovirus, even though they were just vaccinated for it."
"I know of a dog in the US that would get deathly ill about 2 wks after his vaccines. His owner and vet did not make the connection until it was almost too late. He was five and almost died. He never had a shot after that and lived to be 12. I personally haven't had or heard of the troubles you had, but from what I have read, I have only vaccinated at 8 wks, 6 mths and then every three years afterwards. I do not vaccinate after my dogs reach six years old. I just recently started giving rabies upon moving to an acreage. My vet is in agreement with me on all of these procedures but due to the other vets in the clinic and the cash cow that vaccines are, he cannot really say this out loud yet. There are several clinics in the southwest US who are now advocating shots every three years."
"I have had problems with vaccinations myself and I am sure the problem is not actually the shots but rather the puppies' reactions to them. I am pretty sure I have an autoimmune problem in my lines and am trying to get rid of it. It is not easy to see little puppies so swollen up from a reaction to a shot that they can hardly walk without crying in pain. I am very cautious about giving shots because of it. I do not give yearly boosters anymore to my adults. I only did parvo when there was an outbreak in my area. I give puppy series and those are separated out into distemper, adenovirus and parainfluenza only (no lepto or hepatitis). Parvo is done separately 2 wks later. I have been doing this for some time now. The most recent puppy to react to a shot I had put down because he would not come out of it. The autopsy showed an autoimmune reaction to the shot. Another litter went down after their DA2P shots. Some had diarrhoea, one blew up like a balloon. Looking back on my incidents they all occurred about a week to ten days after shots of some kind, however never after a rabies shot. I was told it is because rabies is a killed vaccine and all the others are modified live. Just think about it-you are totally bombarding your tiny puppies with five or six different diseases all at the same time. Some of them we don't even need to worry about. The biggest problem seems to be combining parvo with the others, which is why I recommend separating it out. I have done titre testing on a few of my pups. The tests after their first pair of shots showed full titre for parvo (after only one shot) but nothing for the DA2P. That's why I am not worried about giving the second parvo. After some of the shots, a few puppies showed really deformed fronts but were fine again within a couple of weeks, and no it wasn't bad breeding, these were basically great pups who grew deformed after their shots. A friend had a first-hand experience with vaccine problems when she lost half of two litters to parvo. Now she won't give shots till the pups are four months old and won't give the combinations at all. In fact, since I started splitting my shots quite a few breeders in town are doing it too. When I started, I had to buy all the shots myself, since they were a special order (the DA2P ones); now I don't have to because there are enough people doing it that the vets are stocking them as normal protocol."
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So, if you have read all of the above, you can pretty much guess where we stand on over-vaccinating, ESPECIALLY when it concerns collies. I don't have experience with other breeds, obviously, but am passionate about the collies and their health. To this end, our own collies receive one four-way shot between 13 and 16 weeks, and occasionally another at six months, and that is IT. If it is a particularly hot summer and we are at a lot of shows, I will consider giving a straight parvo shot. The times that we have run into problems of the auto immune system are always when the dog had many shots as a puppy, and a yearly booster. It is just too much for a collie to take!!! So please, PLEASE, think twice before giving your collie that cocktail that your vet might recommend, and consider doing what your breeder asks you to. It just might save your collie from an auto immune problem.
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Nancy
Visit some of these Health Links for additional information:
http://www.backtobasicspetfod.com/articlell.htm
http://www.altvetmed.com
http://www.naturalrearing.com
Thank you to Sherrie Sparling for sharing this link!
http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/3-puppy-vaccination-mistakes-too-early-too-often-too-much/
http://www.backtobasicspetfod.com/articlell.htm
http://www.altvetmed.com
http://www.naturalrearing.com
Thank you to Sherrie Sparling for sharing this link!
http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/3-puppy-vaccination-mistakes-too-early-too-often-too-much/