[Woogie Man]

With the rise in popularity of Yorkies in the past few years, and given that the data on LS is several years old, it hardly seems fair to blame the high incidence of LS on indiscriminate breeding. Prior to the breed's rise in popularity, one would have to assume that many Yorkies were bred by those with established breeding programs and not so-called back yard breeders and it would be from these breeders that the available data was compiled, though I'm sure careless breeding has contributed to the problem. There was an earlier post on this thread regarding a possible link between vaccinations and LS. I have wondered this myself and new evidence is coming out that we are over-vaccinating our dogs based on titer counts. It seems that in most cases (though it varies from dog to dog) that annual booster shots are not needed and there is speculation that, while not necessarily harmful to the dog, may indeed affect their future puppies. I personally changed vets due to this very issue. We had a conflict as she insisted on giving my dogs annual rabies shots while, in my state, it is required by law that the rabies vaccination be a 3 year vaccination. There is also evidence that titer counts for parvo and coronavirus remain high for up to 7 years following initial vaccinations so in those cases booster shots do no good. While this may not answer any questions about LS specifically, it does make one wonder if we aren't weakening our dogs natural immune system and leaving them open to all sorts of health issues.