If you listen to most vets they will try and convince you that annuals are needed but they are incorrect.....
Once a dogs immune it is most likely immune for life....Here are quotes from the experts....
In a paper published over 10 years ago, Schultz provided the following analogy:
An important question to ask yourself is: “What do we do to ensure that children who are vaccinated at an early age, usually less than 6 years of age, still have immunity at 20, 40, 60, or 90 years of age?” Nothing! We don’t measure titers in people, and we don’t routinely vaccinate adults. We rely on the memory cells of the immune system. Since vaccines for people are similar in many ways to canine or feline vaccines, since the immune system of a person is similar to that of an animal, and since immunity persists for the life of a person (average 70+ years), then why wouldn’t immunity from canine or feline vaccines persist for 10 to 15 years?
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We don't repeat vaccinations for parvo and distemper because we need vaccines more than once to form immunity. They are repeated for two basic reasons only: Habit, and to catch those few individuals who for some reason don't respond to the first vaccination. A single immunizing dose of a modified live virus vaccine - in other words, one vaccine that works - will form long term, probably lifetime, immunity to parvo and distemper. (Kirk's Current Veterinary Therapy XIII; 2000;
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The AAHA Canine Vaccine Task Force in 2003 note that MLV vaccines are likely to provide lifelong immunity, stating “when MLV vaccines are used to immunize a dog, memory cells develop and likely persist for the life of the animal” They recommend boosters every three years, but Dr. Schultz, Dr. Dodds, and Dr. Pitcairn
all say this is too often. Dr. Dodds compares immunity to," Once you’re pregnant, being more pregnant isn't useful." If the dog is immune to the disease, he's also immune to the virus in the "booster" vaccine.
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If you are nervous you can do a parvo/distemper titer at one year of age, but the correlation between post-vaccine sero-conversion to these two diseases, and protection from the disease throughout the dog's life, is extremely high. Parvo and distemper are almost unheard of in vaccinated adult dogs, or adult dogs, period. (Kirk's Current Veterinary Therapy XIII, 2000; "Vaccines and Vaccinations: Issue for the 21st Century", Richard B. Ford and Ronald D. Schultz
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One of the veterinary pioneers, Dr. W. Jean Dodds, president of the nonprofit animal version of the Red Cross called Hemopet, reported that the recommendations for annual vaccines were just that -- recommendations.
They were not based on any scientific evidence.
The recommendations for annual vaccination were put forth jointly by the United States Department of Agriculture and the drug companies, more than twenty years ago. And veterinary medicine has continued to do it that way because, well, that’s the way it’s always been done.
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"Veterinarians are charging customers $36 million a year for vaccinations that are not necessary," said Bob Rogers, a vet in Spring who adopted a reduced vaccine schedule. "Not only are these vaccines unnecessary, they're causing harm to pets."
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Take out 1 year of rabies vaccination and the consequential office visit-- just for dogs -- and the average small-practice vet's income drops from approximately $87,000 to $25,000 -- and this doesn't include cats or other vaccinations!
Next To Kin
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Anecdotally, Ronald Schultz reports:
I have also been told by many practitioners that: “I believe the duration of immunity for some vaccines like distemper, parvovirus and hepatitis is many years, but until I find another way to get the client into my office on a regular basis I’m going to keep recommending vaccines annually”.107(Schultz, R.D. 2007. )
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Bob Rogers DVM: Every year over 30 thousand dogs and cats in the U.S. die from adverse reactions from unnecessary vaccines. It has been ten years since the article first appeared in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association entitled “Are we Vaccinating too much?” in which and Dr Ron Schultz stated, ”Clients are paying for something with no effect except the risk of an adverse reaction”.