[Kris Christine]

Originally Posted by Wylie's Mom

Kris, as always thanks so much for always thinking of us and keeping us informed. It's truly appreciated!

Help me work this out in my head. I'm a little surprised at how heavily Dr. Dodds relies on titers when titers aren't wholly accurate. In other words, a dog can show humoral immunity, but not have cellular immunity; in the reverse, a dog can have cellular immunity but not show humoral immunity. Titers don't / can't provide a truly accurate and reliable picture of immunity.

So, does Dr. Dodd's use them, despite this, because it's really the only available tool we currently have that at least gives us *some* idea as to what's going on, even though it may not be totally accurate?

Yes, Dr. Dodds absolutely does use titers & I believe she concurs with Dr. Schultz on this (see below).

This is what Dr. Ronald Schultz had to say in his 2007 presentation to the AKC Canine Health Foundation entitled,What Everyone Needs to Know About Canine Vaccines and Vaccination Programs: What Everyone Needs to Know About Canine Vaccines

"An antibody titer no matter how low shows the animal has immunologic memory since memory effector B cells must be present to produce that antibody. Some dogs without antibody are protected from disease because they have T cell memory, that will provide cell mediated immunity (CMI). CMI will not protect from reinfection, but it will prevent disease."

My own dogs, those of my children and grandchildren are vaccinated with MLV CDV, CPV-2, CPI, andCAV-2 vaccines once as puppies after the age of 12 weeks. An antibody titer is performed two or more weeks later and if found positive our dogs are never again vaccinated. " I have used this vaccination program with modifications (CAV-2 replaced CAV-1 vaccines in 1970's and CPV-2 vaccines were first used in 1980) since 1974! I have never had one of our dogs develop CDV,CAV-1 or CPV-2 even though they have had exposure to many dogs, wildlife and to virulent CPV-2 virus. You may say that I have been lucky, but it is not luck that protects my dogs, it is immunologic memory.