Someone asked me today when Rolos booster was due and it got me thinking if was due on his birthday as this person said it would be or from when he had his last one.If anyone knows could you please let me know as I havnt had a reminder yet.

Thanks Gill

Its 12 months from the last one :)

Haven't you got his card with details of his last vaccinations Gill?  That would tell you when the last ones were done and what was given.  According to vaccine manufacturer instructions, only leptospirosis and parainfluenza are scheduled yearly.  Boosters for parvo, distemper and hepatitis are only scheduled every 3 years.

First boosters would generally be due at about 15 months of age but if mine are falling due about this time of year I would tend to err on the sooner rather than later side as we are reaching peak rat breeding season so I like to have Leptospirosis cover in by early summer at the latest.
Not all vets send reminders, mine doesn't.

One of the vaccine companies have written to me saying that in a perfect world titre tests would be offered each year instead of boosters.

Titre tests are blood tests to check for antibodies and if the dog has the antibodies in his/her system then a booster could be dangerous.  I've just lost my 3 year old GR through this.  Hence the letter from Virbac, the drug company that produced the vaccine. 
Maria

If the dog has no antibodies when a booster is due it seems to me that you have left it too late and that the dog has been vulnerable for an unknown period of time.  That is why we vaccine before the research indicates some dogs will have lost their immunity which is currently held to be 3 years for some diseases, 1 year or less for others.

Without sounding rude, what you have just written doesn't really make sense does it? 

goin on from that, once a dog has antibodies they are there for life as in the case of humans.
Maria

Levels start to drop, you do not wait until you have none as that would mean you have no immunity.
Human's antibodies to different diseases are not there for life, several that we suffer from require boostering if exposure is likely.

Unfortunately even with humans the level of antibodies wanes over time. Smallpox vaccination (which we had as children) needed to be repeated if you visited the US up until the early 1970s - only people who've had the vaccine since then have any immunity; this was highlighted with the recent threat of germ warfare, when many of us assumed that we, who'd been vaccinated, would be immune from a terrorist spread of smallpox. Unfortunately this isn't so, and we have no more protection than someone who (that's most people) who's never been vaccinated.

Tetanus is another that needs boosting ever 10 years for most people - those in particular occupations where they come in contact with horses or the soil are advised to have it more often.

Tetanus is another that needs boosting ever 10 years for most people - those in particular occupations where they come in contact with horses or the soil are advised to have it more often.

not any more ;)
I rang up about having a booster (I am a landscape gardener so am in Constant contact with soil and roses etc) and got told new reasearch shows you donnot need boosters for tetnus and you are immune for life. I didnt really believe them so asked quite alot of nurses over the past few years and they all say the same ;)
Lea :)

That's interesting - I was wondering whether I needed a booster :) Found this http://www.stocksurgery.co.uk/tetanus_cover.htm - may be useful :)

Daisy

If you want a laugh - go to the 'Home' page on this link and look at the doctors' names :D :D

That's interesting - I was wondering whether I needed a booster  Found this http://www.stocksurgery.co.uk/tetanus_cover.htm - may be useful
Well thats completely different to everything i have been told!!!!
And seeing as I am only 28 I deffinatly havnt had 5 boosters!!!
(Not going to that doctor!!!!! LMAO)
Lea :)

I think that it is saying the three initial jabs + 2 boosters ?? :)

Daisy

If I have to go there I'm booking with David :D
Their information though is pretty much what I have been told too.
There are several more diseases that require boosters mostly for diseases that we no longer find in this country but non the less immunity is not permanent.

So should I go back and ask again????
I havnt had a booster since I was about 14!!!!
(RachelSetters, whos signature?????)
Lea :)

I would yes, in your profession.  I always have my boosters as I go abroad a lot but I'm not going to tell you when I've had my 5th one ;)

Polio's another one where adults who were immunised as children have been known to catch it when their own baby's immunised, when changing dirty nappies.

LOL - if you book with John, you might come out a coughin' or even in one :D :D

Daisy

completely off topic but loving your signature..that's to Lea

completely off topic but loving your signature..that's to Lea
Ha ha ha you edited your post ;)
Well I saw a total hunk today with no sirt on. Unfortunatly i had to endure him for several minutes as I was stuck in traffic ;)
I wish I could wolf whistle as he deffinatly would have got one as I drove off ;)
Lea (Who is acting like a dog in heat now I am single again!!!) :)

Thats interesting about the tetanus JG, I recently cut my finger quite deep, I spoke to the nurse at the doctors surgery and she said as I had had all my school tetanus jabs then I was covered for life

I enquired recently about when I was due a tetanus booster and was told not till next year as it was only 9 years since my last one.

had all my school tetanus jabs then I was covered for life
i was begining to think i had imagined what the 5+nurses I have spoken had said. i am sooooooooooooo glad i am not the only one that has been told I am covered for life :)
lea :)

It seems doctors and vets are the same in that they have different protocols. :)

well my last one was about 10 years ago (it was essential, the day I started agricultural college ) no doubt next year I it will be all change and I will be told I do need one !!

or maybe .............. Lea you are the same age as me, I wonder if we had something different done at school with our jabs to give them "lifetime" cover

ok so that is a total stab in the dark

(and its going to be dark camping this weekend if I cant find my damn headtorch )

If they are working for the NHS then I suppose they should be following the NHS protocol.  Reading that if I was in a job where dirty wounds were likely to be a common occurance I would have regular boosters  much as I do for going abroad because of the difficulties of obtained a booster if something occured such as being biten by a baboon or falling in a ditch in Namibia when slightly inebriated ;)

>Titre tests are blood tests to check for antibodies and if the dog has the antibodies in his/her system then a booster could be dangerous.

Strangely enough; it was debated in the 60's that they were going to offer titre testing as a standard regime before boostering as they didn't know how long a booster would protect an individual dog.  But it was decided that less people would pay for it, more dogs would go without protection so they adopted the annual vaccination protocol.

If the dog is incubating the disease as the time he/she was boostered for that particular disease then the animal can develop the disease it was boostered for.  I can't understand why vets don't recommend titre testing before boostering if only for this reason? 

Perhaps they should in an area where there has been outbreaks, probably would not need to where the herd effect had been well maintained and many owners would find the addition cost prohibitive.
I don't think we should forget that until a couple of years ago hundred of thousands, if not millions, of dogs were boostered every year for the full raft of diseases and yet only a tiny proportion of them experienced problems due to an intolerance or the possibility of already harbouring disease or whatever.  Under that regime too, the antibodies in the system at the time of booster could be expected to be considerably higher than at the current 3 yearly protocols.
We none of us know in advance exactly where our individual dogs will fall in all this but what we can do is look at the probabilities or risk and benefit.  Anyone not confident of working it out can look to the British Veterinary Association's policy as represented the majority view of the profession.