Not getting personal at all, just stating a fact Isabel. I also think your posts aren`t making sense either so that makes 2 of us. And as I said, I`ll not be discussing it with you anymore.
You make your mind up however you like & I`ll make mine up with a little help from people I trust & know are knowledgable in the things I have to make decisions about :)

Christine, Spain.

Meg (now 4 1/2) reacted very badly to her fist round of vaccination, & the idea of it being caused by the vaccine was deemed ridiculous by my (then) vet. Since then, I've had her on homeopathic Ignatia which has really helped her. I had her vaccinated once more after her 1st reaction - I didn't trust my instinct enough & listened to the next vet that said she'd be ok (even though he'd just diagnosed a serious heart murmur & she was in season).
After huge amounts of TTouch, a strict de-stress programme, loads of love, BARF & supplements, she's doing really well, but is prone to stress responses when tired. I shall be getting titre tests done to check her immunity in future.

Lots of research has been carried out into this, and vets have finally agreed that dogs CAN have nasty reactions, and the last I heard was that they were now saying boosters every 2 years. Have the blood tests, got to be worth the money when so many peoples dogs have had bad reactions that have affected their imunes for life. I still believe in vaccinating tho, because I remember the horrors of the awful diseases.

How is she doing now 9566?
It`s known vaccines can cause adverse reactions in animals, from mild to death. Dr Jean Dodds, an expert immunoligist has the view that once an animal has had a reaction then they shouldn`t be vaccinated again. If you still want then she suggests using seperate vaccines. This view is held by many other vets as well.
Unfortunately there is no way of knowing what damage has been done to her immune system at the moment.
Hope she`s now recovered tho :)
Christine.

I had a similar reaction with my four month old male.

After the first vacc, it took a good two weeks to get his stomach back to normal, after his second, he was poorly for 24 hours.

His parents were vaccinated homeopathically and my vet is currently looking into whether this can provoke adverse reactions to vaccines in their offspring.

Hi Keeper, glad he`s ok now :) What breed is he??
Homeopathic nosodes are harmless so don`t see how they could provoke adverse reactions, where as vaccines are known to cause them so they would be the first suspect.

Christine, Spain.

Hi Christine,

Sorry was probably confusing in my last post! 

Byron is a Rottweiler and his parents were homeopathically vaccinated whereas he had the conventional vaccine.  I certainly wouldn't use the normal vaccine on him again and will go down the homeopathic route.  To be honest, I think its the vet clutching at straws on why he had the reaction.

Years ago one of my older males had an adverse reaction to a vaccine when he was eight, he always had immunity tests after that and never had another vaccine.

I'm certainly a believer in boosters aren't always necessary - how can you put a 12 month expiry limit on immunity?

My 4 yr old BSD bitch had a very severe reaction to her last booster vaccination of Nobivac. She went into shock and stopped breathing whilst at the vets  After being resusitated we arrived home and within 1 hour her head had swollen to about twice it's size and she went into convulsions and her heart stopped. Luckily MOH Trevor knew how to do cardiac massage and managed to get her heart going again- she was taken back to the vets and given a steroid injection and kept in over night for observation. We have now gone from religiously vaccinating our dogs yearly to only giving the youngsters twice yearly boosters and not revaccinating our oldies. ( Lola needless to say will not be 'boostered' again :()

Yvonne

Sorry to hear that Yvonne :( Hope she`s ok now.
Did you or your vet make out a suspected adverse reaction form?

Christine, Spain.

Hi Keeper, thought he was a rottie just making sure :)
I THINK, rotties are one of the breed Dodds says are more susceptible to vaccine reactions, she & others reckon once a reaction has occured the risks are greater for a reaction happening second time :(
Think you are right & your vet is clutching at straws!
*how can you put a 12 month expiry limit on immunity? *
My thoughts exactly, good luck with them for future health :)

Christine, Spain.

>how can you put a 12 month expiry limit on immunity?

By research. You take a large group of dogs, you vaccinate them then you blood test them (titre test) for the recognised signs of immunity at regular intervals, probably something like monthly for research purposes, when the first dog shows levels that would not give immunity against the disease you are looking at you have the minimum period of cover.  You could also look for when most of the group loose immunity but as most people will want to booster "within" the minimum period to ensure safety that will really be what you are looking for.  Of course another group of researches will run similar tests on other groups of dogs :) and may come up with different results because of the laws of chance but if enough trials are carried out eventually you end up with a clearer picture.

OK, I get the theory with group tests etc. but there are always exceptions to the rule.  Within the study how did the immunity levels vary in number, is it published anywhere?

I would question vaccines after my experience and surely now vets are coming forward disputing the practice it must mean something?

Can I put my oar in??? I must admit I haven't researched vaccines at all, so am not entering into this discussion thread on that level at all.

BUT it seems slightly suspect to me that our (state-financed) National Health Service advocates vaccination of children with NO annual boosters - whilst it is the privately-financed veterinary service that in general continues to advocate annual boosters!

Me - I vaccinate, boost for 2 years, then leave well enough alone for a further 7 years, then re-vaccinate & boost for 2 years.   My vet may not be happy with this method, but I find it works for us.

Margot

Some diseases provide lifetime cover others need boosters even in humans.  I have had my polio boosters, some strains of hepetitis are boostered as are tetanus until several boosters have been had.  It all varies what matters is that research is carried out to find the minimum cover period in order to keep dogs or people within it.

Yes there will be exception to the rule that is why you have to use as large a number as possible, a sample of say 4 would obviously give no reassurance as to the element of luck :) which a sample of 40 you are starting to look at real statistics but luck can obviously still play a big part, by the time you get to 400 you can start to get a little more confident and by 4000 you can reasonable say luck is playing a very small role indeed.  Add to that other studies of good amounts around the world, pool the data and you are really working within the realms of strong probabilities. Another way of reducing any risk is to say if it looks that dogs are safe for 3 years in the statistics vaccinate after 2 then you are further reducing the chances of yours falling foul of a statistical blip.
The studies will all be published in the veterinary journals and sometimes in public sources like the internet but of course only the journals will show the discussing marrying different sources together.
I can understand you questioning vaccinations if you have had a bad experience but only when we look at the bigger picture do we appreciate how the likelyhood of illness affects our dogs anyway regardless of vaccination, every illness has a 1 in 12 chance of happening within a month of annual vaccination and every illness even has a chance of only 1 in 52 of happening with a week, which isn't such long odds is it.  Puppies are probably even more likely to get an illness in those early days and months as they do not have a fully developed immune system.
Have you seen the Pooch at all?  Of course there will always be some dogs that have a serious adverse reaction (of course they will all have some reaction, you do not give a phamaceutical drug without it causing a change to the body, what would be the point otherwise) but if the probabilities of that happening is far exceeded by the benefits that can be gained it seems a logical, although humanly difficult :), decision to make.

I have never experienced that, but I know of people who have, They have gone homeopathic with their dogs, because they don't want it to happen again, I am a fan of modern medicine and all, but homeopethic realy does work!

This may be of interest to you all, I'm not whether the public has access to this journal:

Forty years of canine vaccination.

Appel MJ.

James A. Baker Institute for Animal Health, College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.

During the last 40 years vaccines have been developed that have greatly reduced the incidence of infectious diseases of dogs. In general, modified live products have been superior to inactivated vaccines for dogs. It can be expected that recombinant and/or DNA vaccines may dominate the market in the future. Although most vaccines on the market are safe and efficacious, there have been exceptions where disease was induced by vaccination or dogs were not protected. The failure of protection may in part be due to variations in individual vaccine batches. Only potency tests but not efficacy tests are required, which may not be sufficient. For example, a virus titer in a vaccine may be meaningless if the minimum protective dose is not known. Overattenuated virus (e.g., CDV-Ond or parvovirus in cat cells) may have a high titer in tissue culture but is not immunogenic. The question of frequency of vaccination of dogs should be addressed. Annual revaccinations for CDV, CPV, and CAV are probably not needed. However, it would be desirable to collect more data to support less frequent vaccinations. Annual immunization for bacterial diseases such as kennel cough, Lyme disease, and leptospirosis should continue. It also would be desirable to develop more oro/nasal vaccines, perhaps combined with newly developed vectors that are less likely to induce undesirable side effects that may be seen after parenteral vaccination. Finally a word of warning against homeopathic "nosodes" to replace tested canine vaccines. They will appear highly effective as long as the majority of dogs remain vaccinated. As soon as a nonvaccinated dog population is large enough to allow virulent agents to spread, disease outbreaks will occur and we will be back where we began 40 years ago.

Sarah

That seems to make perfect sense to me. Thanks for finding it!
:)

L. E. Carmichael is on the board of American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), along with others & holds the post of professor emeritus at the Baker Institute.
The AAHA. issued a special report in 2003, I put the link up then but I`m putting it up again as it maybe of interest. If you scroll down it will explain what is known about titres & how people who use them should make sure the laboratory doing the tests should be of high repute, I believe that is the only worry as to the efficacy of them :) One of the reasons I use Glasgow Diagnostics is because it has a great reputation & its also one of only 4 Unis in Europe that its graduates can work in US & Canada without taking proficiency exams. I hope noone who titres will be worried about whats been said in previous posts, laboratories do know when antibodies decline, there are very high standardised tests to determine this, contrary to what others may think :) For those who want to know the scientific in`s & out of it would maybe like to ask the scientists themselves :D

http://www.dogs4sale.com.au/AAHA_Special_Report.htm

Christine, Spain.