[Wylie's Mom]

Why Dog Owners Need to Understand Duration of Immunity

Even though most major vaccine manufacturers have completed three year testing on their products, and the AAHA and AVMA state that the core vaccines can protect for at least five years, many vets are still vaccinating too often. In fact, the senior brand manager for vaccine manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim reports that 60% of vets are still vaccinating annually for the core vaccines.

The veterinary text book, Kirk's Current Veterinary Therapy XI (Small Animal Practice), has this to say about annual vaccination on page 205:

A practice that was started many years ago and that lacks scientific validity or verification is annual revaccinations. Almost without exception there is no immunologic requirement for annual revaccination.

While many vets are vaccinating less often, the vast majority are still vaccinating too often. This is problematic because, although vaccines can protect companion animals from infectious disease, they are also capable of causing disease and ill health.

In the next section, we'll look at how to protect your dog with as few vaccines as possible.

How To Protect Your Dog With Fewer Vaccinations

Puppy Vaccination Schedules

When puppies are very young, they are protected from disease by ingesting their mother’s first milk, called colostrum. This rich milk contains maternal antibodies against disease, which the mother passes down to her puppies. The puppy’s immune system is not fully mature, or active, until around six months of age, but the maternal antibodies provide passive immunity to each puppy.

When a puppy with a reasonable amount of maternal antibodies is vaccinated, the maternal antibodies will essentially inactivate the vaccine, just as they would a real virus. In a study performed by Vanguard, researchers found that a combination vaccine (which typically contains Parvovirus, Distemper and one to five other antigens), given to six week old puppies had only a 52% chance of protecting them against Parvovirus.

This means that the puppy vaccinated at six weeks of age has 100% of the risk of the vaccine but only a 50% chance of being protected.

At nine weeks of age, 88% of the puppies in the study showed a response to the vaccine.

At 12 weeks, 100% of the puppies were protected. Some vaccines will provide protection earlier or later.

Dr Ronald Schultz has come to the following conclusion, based on his research:

“Only one dose of the modified-live canine ‘core’ vaccine, when administered at 16 weeks or older, will provide long lasting (many years to a lifetime) immunity in a very high percentage of animals."

That very high percentage is 92% to 95% of dogs.

Vaccinating puppies under 12 weeks of age, and certainly under nine weeks of age is a high risk, low reward approach. Not only is the vaccine less likely to provide immunity, but it will also suppress the puppy’s immune system for ten days afterward.

Why Puppies (and Dogs) Don’t Need Boosters

Pfizer performed an interesting field study in 1996 where they split vaccinated puppies into two groups. Group A received a single vaccination at 12 weeks and Group B received a first vaccine between eight to 10 weeks, and a second at 12 weeks.

When titers were measured, 100% of the puppies vaccinated once at 12 weeks were protected whereas only 94% of the puppies in Group B were protected – despite receiving two vaccines as opposed to one.

It appears that the first vaccine can interfere with the second vaccine. So vaccinating your puppy twice not only doubles his risk for adverse vaccine reactions, it appears to make vaccination less effective overall.

Most people – and many vets – believe that it takes more than one vaccine to create immunity in a puppy. This simply isn’t true. It only takes one vaccine to protect a puppy, and if it is given at or after 16 weeks of age, it should protect him for life.

Maternal Antibodies

The only reason vets give puppies a series of vaccines is because they don’t know when the maternal antibodies will stop blocking the vaccine. The point in time when the maternal antibodies wane can vary between eight weeks and 26 weeks. So vets vaccinate every two to four weeks, trying to catch the window of opportunity when the maternal antibodies are low enough for the vaccine to work.

Most vets also vaccinate once more at a year of age – just to be certain. Nearly all vets vaccinate every year or three years after that – yet as Dr Schultz states, there is no need for revaccination once a puppy is protected – and if a puppy receives a vaccination at or after 16 weeks of age, he is very, very likely to be protected for at least seven years after, and likely for life.

Puppy Shots

Most vets vaccinate puppies every two to three weeks, because they have no way to tell whether the maternal antibodies have blocked the vaccine. We now know that the more vaccines we give our dogs, the more we expose them to mercury, aluminum and other toxins which are not only dangerous for the developing puppy’s neural system, but can be responsible for the common diseases we see in dogs today.

In place of revaccinating puppies at regular intervals, you can do two things to reduce the number of vaccines given to your puppy.

First, you can vaccinate only once at 16 weeks of age. Since we know that puppies vaccinated at this age are extremely likely to be protected for life, it would make the most sense to wait until this age to vaccinate. Since even vaccinated puppies should stay away from dog parks and other heavily trafficked areas (and the vet’s office should be included in this list), waiting until 16 weeks of age to vaccinate is a safe choice for most healthy puppies.

Shelters and Rescues

Many puppies are in high risk areas like shelters or rescues. Some puppies also come already vaccinated at 6 or 8 weeks of age. For puppies who are vaccinated at an earlier age, and even puppies vaccinated once at 16 weeks of age, titer tests can be invaluable.

In the next lesson, we’ll show you how this simple test can tell you if your dog needs another vaccination.