Great... that's good to hear. Sometimes old farm vets are the best! Nothing like experience.
Actually, when these newer vaccines came out, I was all for them. They sound really good. Why not prevent dental disease... especially in Yorkies who are notorious for having bad teeth? Why not prevent Giardia? I don't like having to give meds every spring and fall for diarrhea. Having to medicate on a regular basis is not such a good thing unless a pet has a chronic condition. Why not prevent the flu! We all know that's a horrible sickness.
The first year I worked as a vet tech, I vaccinated my own Yorkie with Lepto. Twice. I didn't know it can cause bad reactions in small breed dogs. Thank God she was a larger Yorkie and she did not have a reaction to it either time. I worked as the night ER tech and didn't become real familiar with vaccines till I was moved to the day shift. She was a nurse dog... she would alert me to any pup in the ICU that was having a problem. She was right 95% of the time. This was a natural behavior for her, no training done on my part.
She always got her vaccines all at once also. She would be totally knocked out for 2 days or so, and the vets said that was probably from the Rabies vac and they didn't seem concerned about it. As I learned and worked with different vets at the same practice, one mentioned about giving them separately, so I tried that and she handled both vaccines without getting so wiped out. But that was ten years ago, too, and not until much later in life for her.
She also ate crap from the grocery store.
And table scraps. And she chewed metal jeans zippers apart and would swallow the slider thing. I never knew till I found one in her poop one day. And Rawhide chew toys. She lived til she was 16 years old and I had her PTS because she developed Osteoscarcoma in her jaw, of all places. She would bleed every now and then, and I knew one day she would just bleed out and die while I was at work. My vet was against putting her through surgery as it would involve removing a large portion of her jaw, and healing would be difficult as would eating and drinking, and he felt she would suffer more from the surgery than it would help her. So we quietly said our goodbyes, I fed her a last piece of pizza, which she loved, and we parted ways.
For the life of me, with what I know now, I can't fiqure out why she lived as long as she did! Her parents were owned by a friend who purchased them through a pet shop, and they were huge. She was 10 pounds most of her life. All I can say is she was one tough dog!
I think the modern Yorkies are a bit more delicate than she was. I know if I look at mine sideways, they have diarrhea, or go lame. Now I feed a premium food, no rawhide, no table scraps, harnesses only, minimal vaccines, and wellness checks at the vets.
As I was considering the dental vaccine, the breeder of one of my girls called me to say her vet recommended it and she got 3 of her dogs vaccinated with it. They all had reactions and took days for them to recover. That is when I really started reading up on vaccines. Plus my current vet recommends not to get them for my Yorkies, as they are just too new to the market. In a year or two or three I may reconsider, but I will research them all again before making a new decision.
Sorry about the long post....