So I know that everyone has different opinions about vaccinating their animals and I could be opening up a can of worms with this post (so if it gets out of hand I'll remove it :wink:). During my last call with Penny's neurosurgeon I asked her about getting Penny's annual shots (including rabies). We have always vaccinated her every year since she was a puppy and her rabies was every three years. The neurosurgeon told me that she can not get her vaccinations including rabies any time soon...probably for a couple of years at the least. She said that since she has immune mediated meningomyelitis and is being treated with the immune suppressants that the vaccinations will cause stimulus to her immune system and that would not be a good thing (thank goodness we asked about it). So she gave us a letter to send to our county dog licensing department to get her exempt from the rabies vaccination.
So here is my question...how will this affect her? Can she get sick easily now? How often do you vaccinate your puppers? The doctor said that she should be fine and that she could have a slight chance of catching something but that there is no alternative.
I dont know how old your baby is but there is alot of talk about not vaccinating pets like they used to but to do this every 3 years as most pets are over vaccinated. Rabies is required by law so that you would have to have a letter from the vet and make sure you keep a copy of this letter on hand at your house if someone were to come by for varification of it.
Do what your vet tells you to and i am sure you baby will be just fine.
Keep us posted with the progress.
If you are worried about Penny getting something your vet can do a titer (blood test) to see how she is doing on all the vaccinations allot of people do not give the shots every year I'm on the fence about it yet.
Patches Mom
You won't get flamed by me, I read somewhere that after their initial primary secondary response vac's you need only do everyother year. I know Oliver reacts to the C7 and get anti inflams with it. I found another vet site inOZ that advocated evry other year, I'll go and see if I can find it. But would love a decisive answer. AS to titres( was head tech in a vet lab), vets don't draw blood as good as done and hoooomans, and haemolysis etc does effect some of the tests. If you get them done make sure they draw enough.
We are doing every 3 years after we do the first couple of years of the parvo etc. We can have 3 year rabies certificates here too.
There is a rabies challenge due to start when they have the funding with Dr. Jean Dodds and Dr.Ronald Schultz of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine.
The studies are to be financed by The Rabies Challenge Fund Charitable Trust, a tax-exemption organization founded by pet vaccine disclosure advocate Kris L. Christine of Maine in 2005, and will be performed by Dr. Schultz at the University of Wisconsin. The University has waived its usual 48% overhead fee for these studies. The concurrent challenge studies will determine the duration of immunity
conveyed by the canine rabies vaccine, with the goal of extending the state-mandated interval for boosters to 5, and then to 7 years.
So hopefully we will someday be able to do that even less often too.
Merion & the ZZ's