karlin said:
Judy, I would not postpone rabies if you are taking Zack out to parks and so forth. Not only is it dangerous to him but a potential health risk to YOU. Rabies is extremely painful to treat for any human exposed to it.
This is what i thought when i first got Zack, but there is a lot to learn about this subject.
Rabies is an extremely rare disease, especially where i live, unheard of in domestic animals. The statistics kept by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for 2001 show that there were about 7000 reported cases of animal rabies in the year. Out of the 10's of millions of dogs in the US, i dont' know how many of the 7000 reported were dogs, the CDC says the majority of the reported cases are wildlife animals. That year, there were 18,000 humans treated for rabies, who may or may not have actually been exposed. Again, most are accounted for by contacts with wildlife. Almost all of them occured on the East coast.
I live in an urban area with far less wildlife than other areas, and the risk to me and to dogs in my area is very very small. (the Los Angeles area).
I appreciate your concern and caution. I too have been very concerned about Zack, both about having necessary vaccinations, and about avoiding unnecessary vaccinations due to the health risks of vaccinations, some serious.
When i first got zack, I began learning and found that one of the animals who carry rabies is racoons. Once in a while, every few years, a racoon or a family of racoons comes through my yard. They don't stay, i don't see them more than one day or so, but they are racoons. I also have possums almost every year, though apparently not this year, i haven't seen a one. None of these animals i've seen have ever acted strangely or ill.
Some people I consulted assured me that the risk of exposure to rabies by racoons, or possums, in my area, was nil.
Here is a link to the CDC rabies website. It shows graphically that i live in an area where the frequency of reported rabies in animals is extremely rare. If you look at the racoon map, you will see there were zero cases of racoon vector in Southern California that year. In fact, there were zero reported racoon cases in the entire western United States. And except for a few in Texas, there were no reported racoon cases in the whole central United States either.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies/Epidemiology/Epidemiology.htm
The only reported cases were of bats, 15 cases. I've never seen a bat in person in my life.
Here are some statistics on rabies prevalence and incidence in the US and UK:
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/r/rabies/stats.htm
Because there are real risks to Zack's heath from the rabies vaccine, I do not want to administer it unnecessarily or mechanically, without researching it. Because it's required by law, and because i want the reassurance that he is protected against rabies, however remote the risk, and to insure that he won't have to be quarantined in the unlikely event that he is believed to have bitten anyone, i plan to have him vaccinated, but advice from a respected breeder in my area was to try to wait until after a year old. so i have sort of kept that time frame in mind, while researching the situation as best i can, for Zack's sake.
The law also says dogs in my state must have yearly boosters, yet there is mounting evidence, increasingly less controversial, that this is not necessary, that even re-vaccination every 3 years may not be necessary but certainly more reasonable than yearly. Thank goodness this is gradually changing. The change is established for cats, i believe.
Be aware that titers are not considered wholly reliable for testing for antibodies. So you are always leaving a window of risk for a dog that is tested on titers alone. I would not trust titers; instead I'd use the recommended spacing from Dr Jean Dodds and others of three years.
I believe Dr Dodds recommends using titers and not vaccinating if the titers show immunity. The problem isn't one of reliability of titers, they are clearly reliable. the problem is one of inconsistent interpretation, varying methods, and non-uniform standards, and this is in the process of being worked out. Titer testing is useful for several purposes, such as verifying immunity in puppies, where vaccinations can be rendered ineffective by maternal antibodies, as well as gaining information about duration of immunity provided by a given vaccination. Titer results can reliably show whether an animal has immunity or not. In the quote you gave below from Mike Richards, he says there is a lack of agreement, not that titers are not reliable information. And from titers, as he says, we can know that vaccination against parovirus for example gives lifelong immunity. Yet people continue to give yearly boosters, because vets recommend it. And vets recommend it because they go according to what the pharmaceutical companies tell them, since those companies and not the vets do the research on which those recommendations are based.
If I were not vaccinating a dog that might have a weak immune system I also would NOT be taking that dog to areas where it can easily be exposed to all the things that could make it sick: eg dog parks, parks generally, walking in area frequented by other dogs, leaving in kennels, and so on.
That is wise advice, imo.
A big problem with not vaccinating annually and not giving bortadella isd that it will be very hard to find any kennel or boarding operation that will accept the dog. You only need to give bortadella a week or so before the dog goes into kennels, however.
That is a real problem for people who need to board their dogs or who need professional grooming. Dr Dodds and others have participated in campaigns to persuade legislators in various states in the US not to pass laws mandating such establishments to require documentation of yearly vaccinations, or in support of nondisclosure bills. She and others do this out of care for the animals, striving to protect them from the known and predictable harmful effects of forced overvaccination.
see this link regarding Dodds's advocacy against a New York law.
http://www.itsfortheanimals.com/NY Pet Vax Bills S02164 - A14253.htm
http://www.itsfortheanimals.com/DODDS-VAC-LEGISL.HTM
(scroll down for Dr Dodds's letter in support of a Maine law)
It is very rare for dogs to get something like kennel cough from a vaccine -- I have been told this is merely coincidence, that the dog was exposed at some period prior to the vaccine or before it was effective against KC.
Maybe so, but this is controversial. It's speculative.
The flip side of this is, if you are exposing a dog to KC you are exposing it to risk of what can turn into pneumonia amd be very serious indeed. We have one list member who nearly lost their dog to KC-based pneumonia.
Some claim that the risk of serious illness from bordatella is minimal in healthy adult dogs. Immuno-compromised dogs or puppies are the ones who are at risk, just as human babies are at risk of contracting infectious diseases, and as you said, it's wise not to take puppies or sick dogs to places where a lot of dogs congregate, just as it's inadvisable to take newborns into crowded public places. An adult can have a mild disease that in a baby could be fatal, or very serious.
Bordatella is not considered a core vaccination by the American Animal Hospital Association which issues vaccination guidelines to educate the veterinary profession in the US and encourage them to treat each of their patients individually rather than using blanket procedures. Bordatella is a non-core or optional vaccination under these guidelines. Considerations of the task force in categorizing a vaccine as noncore include exposure risk, but also that the disease being protected against is mild and self limiting, and easily treatable. again, in individual cases, bordatella can cause life threatening pneumonia, as the flu can cause this in certain humans, but in normal adults, vaccination is considered optional because the risk of harm is not high.
Here is a link to the 2003 AAHA task force on vaccinations report. It deals with seriologic testing (titering), adverse events and the problem of underreporting of such, consensus recommendations for protocols, assessing each patient as an individual--interesting. They came out with a new version in 2006 which basically recaps what they said in 2003, with the intention of showing that experience continues to support their reasoning. The 2006 version is (importantly) divided into two parts, the first being for regular pet owner situations, and part two addressing the special and different needs of shelter dogs.
http://f2.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/sMKxRC...RJotJ0MOo1HdB6O2KVnw_MA/CanVaccGuidelines.pdf
Here are some other relevant links:
this piece is by Ronald Schultz, professor and chair of the department of patho-bioloical sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of
Wisconsin/Madison, in which he discusses duration of immunity, titering, and the necessity (or lack of) of certain vaccinations. Dr Schultz will be running the rabies challenge study that Dr Dodds and others are laboring to raise money for.
http://www.cedarbayvet.com/duration_of_immunity.htm
I'm curious about what you think.
Here is a piece by Christie Keith
http://www.doggedblog.com/about.html, who created the Beyond Vaccinations website providing information on this subject:
http://www.caberfeidh.com/Revax.htm
here's an excerpt:
I know we'd all like to think we can put a magic barrier around our animals that will protect them from all disease and have 100 percent effectiveness and no risk. The closest you'll ever get to that is to build a barrier of radiant good health, which comes from excellent breeding practices, never suppressing disease symptoms, and excellent holistic husbandry including diet, environment, exercise, and TLC.
In the real world, such a barrier will never be perfect. We have to accept some risk in one direction or another.
Those who don't vaccinate at all must accept the risk that the animals in our care might get sick from an infectious disease; with puppies, the risk is great that they will die, and even if they live, they might have lingering effects from the disease, and the vet bills (and feelings of guilt) might be considerable. Those who do vaccinate must accept the risks of side effects, allergic reactions, vaccine failures, cancer, and autoimmune disease.
