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Originally Posted by kjc  Great post... but her dog has been vaccinated with the 'old' Lepto vaccine. |
The new Lepto vaccine has been around since 2004. This OP's dog is only 4 years old. Unless the vet is cheap and outmoded, I'd assume they woudl use the most up-to-date vaccines and protocols (another reason I stick with AAHA vets by the way who at least have some objective standards they follow). I do suppose that a vet could deem one product to be better based on the serovars showing up in diseased animals in that particular geographic area so maybe that is part of the individualized assessment of risk and benefit that a professional does.
In the northeast dogs die every year from Leptospirosis and the few that make it have kidney and liver problems. It is a very difficult disease to diagnose. In our case, my vets know to put Lepto on a differential diagnosis list because our dogs are unvaccinated and are at a higher risk for the disease. As long as I keep seeing raccoons in my yard, I am going to assume there is a possibility of infected urine that could cause the transmission of the disease to my little cuties when they are out there romping. I should note that I live in an urban area where there are dogs being diagnosed with leptospirosis infection.
I still do not opt to vaccinate, taking my own precautions and offering up a few prayers. I'm constantly on the fence on this one and because my dogs have not had reactions to vaccines in the past, it may be one that comes back into play for us...
But I have to say, I've never heard of a vaccine creating a liver shunt. I'd like to ask my vets about this one, but would want to point to at least some credible or reliable veterinary source (such as a peer reviewed journal article) as a springboard for the discussion. If one such reliable source exists, I'd like to read it to learn more about this.