coconut said:
I posted here last week that freddie had an upset tummy and was with the vet, who put him on tabs! when i was talking to the vet he told me to bring freddie this week for his last shot but h2b brought freddie yesterday as i had work stuff on and the vet would not give him his last shot as she felt that there was to much of a gap between shots!
Did u ever hear of this before?
It sounds like you're talking about two different vets because you call the first one a 'he' and the second one a 'she.' Is that right? maybe two vets have different opinions?
What did the second vet say? did she say he had to start the series over because she thought there was too much gap since his last shot? If so, why would she refuse to vaccinate him when he was brought in yesterday? Why wouldn't she start the series over yesterday? i'm confused.
If you were in the US, the recommendation of the leading professional veterinary organizations would be the same as what Barbara's vet said.
The recommendations of the American Animal Hospital Association, endorsed by the American Veterinary Medical Association, depend on how old the dog is now and how old he was when he had his most recent shot, with respect to the basic core puppy shots (distemper and parvo modified live virus vaccines).
They recommend that If he's less than 14 weeks, a shot (of modified live virus) should be given every three weeks (every 2 to 4 weeks) between the ages of 6 and 14 weeks. In their list of vaccination do's and don't's at the end of their report, they say do not vaccinate any closer together than two weeks apart, this is considered unnecessarily risky.
If the dog is 14 weeks old or older, according to the AAHA, they only need one shot, no matter how many they've had before, even if they've had none before. This is because they are likely to no longer have antibodies from their mother powerful enough to make the vaccination ineffective in puppies young enough to still have those antibodies in their system (those antibodies are the only reason for giving a series rather than just one shot, according to the AAHA). The antibodies from the mother are temporary and are believed to not pose a problem for vaccination by 14, and even 12, weeks, according to the AAHA report.
How old is Freddie and when was his last shot? From that, you would be able to tell what the AAHA would recommend. I don't know if different guidelines are used where you are, but it sounds like the two vets Freddie saw have different opinions about it.
Here is the report of the AAHA 2003 where there are details of the above summary.
http://leerburg.com/special_report.htm