Post
by LCW » Tue February 24th, 2009, 4:53 pm
[quote=""cw gortner""] I also do not booster vaccinate: she has had her set of puppy shots and that is it. I've tested her titers (antibodies) and she shows good levels of immunity. The booster shots killed my previous dog when she was 10 years old; she developed a horrific auto immune disease fueled by the leptosporiosis portion of the booster. I was devastated by her loss; it was a long, dreadful illness and costly. Never again. We over-vaccinate our animals in the US.[/quote]
I definitely agree that we over vaccinate in this country. My dog, Lila, came down with a horrible auto immune disease and she almost died when she was about 4 years old. It's one of the reasons I switched to raw but I'm sure that the vaccinating every year had a lot to do with it. My vet does the puppy shots (minus the Leptospirosis), then one year later, then every three years. Pit bulls are very susceptible to parvo and parvo is epidemic in Southern California so I'll definitely be getting him his booster in a year but after that every three years is plenty. An after age 10 no shots at all, except rabies as required by law.
I've never had titers done but I suppose I should consider it. My issue is that we travel quite a bit and while we arrange for a pet sitter for the cats sometimes we have had to end up boarding the dog. Unfortunately kennels and day care facilities haven't updated their vaccine requirements and still require pets to be over vaccinated. I've gotten around this and taken a bunch of literature to the local boarding kennel we use but I was lucky there! Most of them wouldn't even consider it! I wonder if it would be different if I walked in there with titer results??
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