Quote:
Originally Posted by kjc  Food for thought: A Science-Based Vaccination Schedule For Your Dog And Cat
Giving a dog Benadryl and Metcam will make him comfortable after a vaccine. But the dog’s body is trying to tell you something, depending on his post vaccine symptoms. More severe symptoms should not be ignored, and IMHO a less frequent vaccine schedule would be discussed with my vet. Lyme vaccine only works 60-70% of the time, and there are topical tick repellants that can be used if you decide not to vaccinate.
I think the Flu vaccine helps to lessen the severity of the disease, but does not prevent a dog from acquiring the disease. With dogs that have problems getting vaccines, I would skip this one too and keep the dog in the house, or at least away from other dogs and areas that other dogs frequent a lot. |
For an article called a science based vaccination schedule, it was rather sensationalistic and unscientific. I don't necessarily disagree with the conclusion (that core vaccines should be given every 7 years instead of every three), but the article doesn't present any evidence to that effect. (Maybe it's buried in the references?) There are other threads on Yorkietalk that debate the vaccine schedule and do provide the evidence. In many (most?) parts of the US, you would be breaking the law if you did not get the core vaccines on the AVMA recommended schedule of 3 years for the core vaccines. You would risk having your dog taken and euthanized. Until the laws change, I wouldn't be recommending that people break them.
In my part of the country, we get the leptospirosis vaccine and not the Lyme's vaccine--it really depends on where you live. Bordetella is required by the groomer and boarders. I will start the dog flu series at Bella's next appointment. Bella is not extremely exposed to other dogs (other than grooming and boarding), but we are close enough to one of the ground zeros (Chicago) to warrant it.