Hi, I have just had a phone call from one of my puppy owners to say that her puppy who was 14 weeks this last friday had titre results back from Edinburgh vet school to say she had no immunity to parvo despite completing her vaccination course on 2.8.10 (bloods done on 23.8)
Her vet has suggested that she start a puppy course again on Thurs, and she will be keeping her on her property until its resolved. I'm worried about her socialisation/revaccinating but fully understand her owner's decision as she lost a puppy (fully vaccinated) at 6 months due to parvo a few years ago (hence the titre test with my pup).
Any advice/ experience with this will be gratefully recieved.
TIA Angela

As I understand it there are some dogs that the vaccination will never take.

To be honest re-vaccination is most likely to take when the immune system is mature, so usually over 6 months of age.

I think this is the logic of boosting at this point in the USA.

The puppy protocols are based on the assumption that maternal antibody levels will have fallen enough for the vaccination to take, this process can be very variable.

It also appears that some breeds seem to have this happen more often, dobes and Rotties being two I have heard of needing a booster after 6 months as the puppy vaccs haven't taken.

Was told many years ago by a drug company rep at a seminar that 2 out of every 5 vaccinations don't take, so just under half of puppies are walking around unvaccinated!

Low titre tests do not necessarily mean the dog is not protected.

Many people who are trying to reduce vaccination are interested in using "titers" as a test to measure whether or not their dog is still immune to a disease. They often speak of titers as showing "high" or "low" immunity, or of "having to" re-vaccinate when a titer is low. While there is not a tremendous amount of research on titers in dogs, I think it's fair to say there is quite a bit of misunderstanding on the part of pet owners, and even many veterinarians, as to what a titer test does or does not tell us.
A "titer" is a measurement of how much antibody to a certain virus (or other antigen) is circulating in the blood at that moment. Titers are usually expressed in a ratio, which is how many times they could dilute the blood until they couldn't find antibodies anymore. So let's say they could dilute it two times only and then they didn't find anymore, that would be a titer of 1:2. If they could dilute it a thousand times before they couldn't find any antibody, then that would be a titer of 1:1000.

A titer test does not and cannot measure immunity, because immunity to specific viruses is reliant not on antibodies, but on memory cells, which we have no way to measure. Memory cells are what prompt the immune system to create antibodies and dispatch them to an infection caused by the virus it "remembers." Memory cells don't need "reminders" in the form of re-vaccination to keep producing antibodies. (Science, 1999; "Immune system's memory does not need reminders.") If the animal recently encountered the virus, their level of antibody might be quite high, but that doesn't mean they are more immune than an animal with a lower titer.

The puppy may not have been exposed to the disease and therefore is showing no reaction on the test.

Thank you Tess2 - makes good sense. You do not credit anyone for the text in italics is the research yours or is there an on line paper I could read.

I took it from another forum and it was in turn quoted from another thread.  Are we allowed to give refs to other doggy forums on here?

I knew it was quite a complicated subject because I asked a lot of questions myself when I was considering titre testing a year ago.

No I don't think you can give a link or a name of another forum but you can say if you quote from a paper or article. I understand that you are unable to help me as you probably do not know the original source. Thanks anyway it is interesting.

http://www.caberfeidh.com/Titers.htm

I think this may be the article? it does state that titres are useful in checking status post puppy primary vaccs which is what has happened in this case.

Many thanks.

The puppy may not have been exposed to the disease and therefore is showing no reaction on the test.
But if the puppy has just been vaccinated, then there should be antibodies circulating due to the vaccination response as the puppy has been exposed to the disease (via vaccination).

Vera

Maybe the puppy had the vaccines too early - the first vaccine cancels out the immunity and the second replaces it - she certainly wouldn't need the whole course again, if she is going to vaccinte again then only one is necessary especially as she has already had two. 

Did the titre show no immunity whatsover for Parvo or was there a small immunity level?  The reason I ask is even a small immunity level shows there is immunity, just that the dog has not been challenged with the desease.

 

I was told there was no immunity, have informed all the other puppy owners from the litter, the puppy in question was done at 9 weeks & 11weeks. I will suggest she goes for 1 additional, does anyone know if you can get single vaccs for parvo rather than the combined?
TIA
Angela

There are single vacs for parvo but not all vets stock them, I had a problem when trying to vaccinate my dog for parvo only, I was offered parvo only if I purchased the whole box of vaccines (by numerous practices) the excuse was the vaccines would not be used.  A breeder friend of mine told me that most vets practices which have a few breeders as clients are more likely to carry the individual vaccines.