[lil fu fu girl]

[QUOTE=bellasmomok;3253766]Bella's reaction was more mild...lethargy, fever, and severely painful injection site.

Can we go over again where the bacteria is likely to be found (unless there is an outbreak, like in the Detroit area)??


Unfortunately the organism is everywhere here in the US, mainly from the urinary shedding of organisms from infected animals. I do not just mean rats, but also cats who are carriers of the disease, and our family pups who have not been diagnosed, who remain asymptomatic, yet are highly infectious. The current vaccine holds the predominate 4 out of the 230 various serovars which have been identified. Out of these 230 serovars, 8 are known to cause disease in both dogs and cats. The first 4 are the most commonly acquired bacterial infection in dogs. They are:
Leptospira icterohaemorrhagiae, L. canicola, L. grippotyphosa, L. pomona, L. bratislava, L. automnalis, L. bataviae, L. hardjo, and L. grippotyphosa.

In 2004, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals came out with a multi-strain vaccine that accounts for the top 4 infectious serovars.

One of the main issues, is that not all pups who acquire the disease become symptomatic. In the 2007 Michigan study, 25% of the unvaccinated healthy dogs in a control group were found to have antibodies to Lepto. This indicates that at one point, the dogs were infected unknown to their owners.

Here is my problem. When we take our pups out to healthy areas to play, our front yard, the dog park, the mall area; we never really know what dog has urinated in those areas. In consideration that most dogs are left unvaccinated and untreated, then we have to acknowledge that they are still subject to organism shedding in their urine. So despite our best efforts to take our pups to "safe" places where we do not see any rats or wild animals; what about the other infected dogs?

A last thought to consider. Most of our pups will end up dying do to complications surrounding CIN, kidney failure. Lepto left unvaccinated and untreated will establish colonies within the kidney and liver and gradually, systematically, destroy the functionality of these two organs. So is the kidney failure do to old age, or is it do to Lepto bacterial infection?