Vaccine Dosage Question

[StormyColorado]

Do yorkie puppies receive the full dose of DHPP despite their much smaller size than medium or larger dogs?

[Bluebells]

Yes, they do.

All puppy vaccinations are the same, no matter the breed / size of the puppy.

Those are the vaccine manufacturers’ guidelines, based on studies done when the vaccines were developed and tested.

Occasionally, you will hear a fringe group or individual advocating for smaller vaccine doses for small breed pups, but there have been no studies that have shown the smaller doses are effective in preventing disease, so it’s not worth the risk to do it.

[Bluebells]

An added note, in case the vaccine dosage is worrying you: vaccines are different than medications such as antibiotics that are dosed by (approximate) body weight.

Vaccine doses are quite tiny, since their purpose is only to stimulate the body’s immune response, not to cure a disease. A tiny amount of the vaccine is injected into the body, and (absent an allergic reaction, of course, which is generally not related to the size of the recipient) the body slowly — over the course of several weeks — develops an immune response to it.

The point is that you don’t need to worry that a standard vaccine dose (generally 1 ml) is too much for a tiny toy breed puppy, because it’s not. It’s a tiny dose for all puppies, because the immune response only requires a tiny dose.

You’ll be in the same situation if you go get a vaccination against the flu, or covid, or shingles. Adult humans might range in size from 100 pounds to 400 pounds, but they all get the same dosage of vaccines, because the dosages required are tiny.

[Lovetodream88]

Yes. That is because it is based on the immune system not the size of the dog.