Vaccines are substances that are most often injected (some nasal "drip" shots exist) to prevent contagious diseases. They are made from the virus or bacteria that can cause the disease but it has been altered so that it produces an immune response in the body but not the actual disease. For many years, our pets have been administered yearly "shots." This was not based on sound scientific data but instead it was just the "standard of care." In the last several years, there has been evidence that this may actually harm some animals.

As a result of this new information, we have modified our vaccine recommendations for each individual pet. As a holistic practice, we look at the pet's individual history as well as their environment and exposure risks.

Vaccines are most important in young pets just as they are important in young children. As our animals age, just like us, the focus of our health shifts to metabolic diseases, arthritis, cancer prevention, etc. For our young pets, we recommend a series of vaccines to help with their development of protection against certain diseases. Although most animals get some immunity from their mother, this decreases over the first several months.

Our vaccine recommendations include "core vaccines" such as distemper/parvo and rabies for dogs and panleukopenia/upper respiratory and rabies for cats. Other individuals may benefit from some of the other vaccines such as kennel cough, leptosirosis or Lyme disease. Young, outdoor cats may benefit from the feline leukemia vaccine if their exposure outweighs any risk of the vaccine.

It is interesting to note that we are able to document protection of the vaccines past the previous "duration of immunity" of one year. Recent vaccine research and recommendations from groups such as the American Association of Feline Practitioners has changed the recommendations for feline panleukopenia to every three years after kittenhood vaccines.

We also check titer values in dogs. This involves a simple blood test to look at that individual's memory of it's previous vaccination. We are finding some animals have antibodies (the memory) for three to five years after the vaccines.

The rabies vaccine is required by law for both cats and dogs.

It is possible that some animals may develop adverse reactions to a particular vaccine. The benefit of vaccination in young pet outweigh the risk of vaccine reactions in most cases but it is very important to be aware of the possibilities.

Some adverse reactions include fever, facial swelling, acute allergic reaction (anaphylaxis), autoimmune diseases and vaccine cite tumors (cats only). It is important to let your veterinarian know if your animal has ever had any reactions to vaccines in the past. It is also helpful to note that some of these adverse effects are more likely to happen if multiple vaccines are given at the same time.

It is very important to have your pet still have an annual examination despite not receiving any vaccines. By placing less emphasis on vaccines, we can focus on so many other issues such as nutrition, behavior and early detection of many chronic health problems. Instead of vaccination, we may recommend blood screening tests which improves the chances of catching and treating diseases earlier.