Thanks for that, Chris - appreciated

Jo

This thread has got me very worried, as I have 3 pups who are going for their first vacs next week! I tried to get just the parvo vaccine for them at 7 weeks, but my vet can only buy them in 10's and I would have had to buy all of them. So I'm waiting until they are 10 weeks to start, when hopefully they can cope better with the combined vaccine.
Also, I have another worry with my Whippet, who will be 5 this month. He had his puppy vaccine, then a booster a year later, but due to the fact that I was worried about over-vaccinating, he has had nothing since. To make me even more worried, TWO of his litter mates have developed auto-immune disorders, his brother has haemolytic anaemia, and his sister has a type which affects her joints (lupus- type?), which she developed soon after her first booster.
I have fed him a BARF diet with flax seed oil and supplements for the last 3 years, but I do worry about his protection against lepto, parvo etc. Should I go ahead and have a booster, or get him titre tested, and if so, what does this involve, can my own vet do it, etc, etc?
Any help much appreciated as I want to do the right thing....
Liz

Well I'm no expert and there are loads of thoughts and ideas on the do's and don'ts of vaccination but my thoughts would be that if you are worried about your dog's immunity then a titre test would at least give you an indication of what the immune levels are like against certain diseases.

Your vet will take a blood sample, you must ask for it to be tested for all the viruses/diseases that you normally vaccinate against i.e. Parvo, Distemper, Hepatitis and Lepto., he will then send it off to the lab and approx. 14 days later you receive a report, a copy of which your vet will keep. Not everyone likes to have titre tests done because they feel it's an unnecessary visit to the vet or they would rather not know what the immunity levels are. One thing to remember, just because some of his litter mates have immune problems doesn't necessarily mean your dog will. My bitch has immune problems but her litter mates are all fine. My vet recommends puppy vaccinations, the first annual booster then no more boosters for 2 or 3 years and only boost every 2 or 3 years.

With regards to the split vaccines, it is true they come in batches of 10, however my vet managed to use them up because all he did was mix the split vaccines together when vaccinating other pups but he kept them separated for my pup. It really depends on how helpful your vet is because mine first thought I was mad but respected my wishes, however I do know of other people who had to change vets in order to get the vaccines separated. I also might add that the only reason we did this was because there had been vaccine reaction cases in our breed and this regime was said to reduce the risks but not eliminate them. We were informed by our breeder that weims react only to the puppy vacs and not the boosters.

I would say if your dog is fit and healthy then try not to worry. We only found out our bitch had immune problems because she developed meningitis TWICE :-( Also remember that all those dogs who have had reactions to vaccines there is also a large number that haven't.

Good Luck with whatever you decide but if you have a good vet then talk to him. Remember what is right for one person/breed is not necessarily right for you. :-)