Re: [Chihuahuas] Vaccination question

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 15:40:58 -0800

Great information, Peggy.
 
Laura




-----Original Message-----
From: Peggy & The Girls <[email protected]>
To: Chihuahuas <[email protected]>
Sent: Sun, Feb 6, 2011 4:48 pm
Subject: Re: [Chihuahuas] Vaccination question

 
A couple of group members have posted links about vaccinations and I just wanted to say that it is well worth
every one to read all of it so that you have a better understanding as to what the shots can do, good and bad. Try to remember that Vets are in a business and as such need to draw customers in to make a living. Not only does the vaccines make them money but so does the payment of the exam, even if a dog doesn't need the shot, but gets it anyway.  I am only saying this because their are still to many vets out their that are looking at their wallet instead of what is the best thing to do for our dogs. Vaccinations is a long term controversy with many Vets. The only way to get around it is to educate yourself. You can Google it and will find many many other sites on the controversial subject  as to when and how often to inoculate your dog.
 
When I managed pet shops about 20 years ago, it was also the first time that the Parvo Virus came out. Puppies were dying by the thousands and once they came up with a vaccine, everyone was pumping
their dogs and puppies with it on a regular bases before they even had enough data on the vaccine to
see what it's long term effect would do to a dog. The breeders at that time were not only giving the killed
virus to the puppies but the live virus as well. The result was that the Virus was now spreading like wild fire
and killing the breeders as well. The ones that did survive and were used as breeders were now producing puppies with a very fragile immune system and other health issues were popping up in their stock for years.
 
It wasn't until a couple of years later when more research was done, that they realized that a puppy
has it's own immunity to Parvo and many other virus's if it is bred from a mother who had previously
been vaccinated. That immunity was now also in the mother's milk. So to give a 6 week or younger
puppy, a Parvo shot or other shots, which is what the PM,s and breeders were doing at that time,
the milk only neutralized the vaccine and was therefore in effective, but in fact was causing
the puppies to actually come down with Parvo and most did not survive.
 
I had two such puppies from that period. It was my first pet shop management job. It was the
first time that the owners were selling puppies. They got a shipment in of 12 different breeds.
Within days, every time I opened the store I would find a dead puppy, that the night before looked fine..
It was horrible how the Parvo virus can consume a puppy. Most of them looked like they were dead for over
a week rather then just a couple of hours. To this day, I am left with the horrible memories of those days
and it is haunting. Which is why I have always tried too educate myself as much as possible on everything that has to do with the dog world.
 
The male dog which was a maltese that survived would not have survived, if I didn't buy him. The owners did nothing to help the puppies and Fluffy was the last one, so I bought him, took him to a good Vet and quit the pet shop and stayed home with him day and night and nursed him back to health. The Vet said that he should not have survived and considering the other 11 didn't, and Fuffy's vital signs were showing that he was half gone and not expected to live another 24 hours.  But he did live to 16 and 1/2 years, and cancer of the liver is what got him in the end.
 
I went through the same scenario with a female maltese, my little Gidget, a year later, plus she was hypoglycemic. A friend had called me and told me that a sick puppy had been delivered to her store. She asked if I would take care of her if she bought her from her from the truck driver that delivered or he was going to put her down, by putting her in a plastic bag and then attaching it to the exhaust on his truck. She was suffering and he wanted to put her out of her misery, rather then drive her all the way back to MS in the none air conditioned truck. (Yes folks, this is the sought of horrible stuff that goes on all the time in pet shops, and worse) The pet shop owner would not take her as she was half dead. I said yes and I paid her the $75.00 and nursed Gidget back from Parvo too. Because of these two, I am a firm believer of using Nutr-Cal that builds them up fast and hand feeding whatever you can get into them when ever a dog is under any stress of any kind. I am also a firm believer of being at your dogs side 24/7 when they are that sick and not to be isolated in a cage with very little human contact, if at all possible. I really believe that if these two were kept at the Vets, or in a back room at pet shop and in a cage, without some one edgeing them on to hang in their, that they would have given up. I find this is even more important with puppies who really don't have any understanding of anything yet, except a kind voice being constantly their for them.
 
 
During those years, they were still telling pet owners to give your dogs Booster shots every year and Rabies shots every year. No one had publicsized any research on the side and long term effect of these shots yet. As a result most of us believed our Vets and gave them the Booster. The following year, Fluffy went for his Booster, I was petrofied of the thought of him getting Parvo again unless he did have it. I cannot tell how horrible it was for him for 48 hours! He did nothing but cry and whimper and let out a horrific wolf howl every once in a while. You couldn't even touch him with your finger to comfort him, without him letting out a yelp of pain. They didn't have anything to counter act the Booster, so my poor Fluffy who suffered so much the year before had to endure it one more time. After that I swore no more shots!  I hated and still do hate the fact that by Federal law we still have to give our dogs repeated Rabies shots, which is so unneccsary, sinc e their hasn't been a case of rabies in over 20 years across the states and a dog is immune from it for life with just one shot.
 
Thanks to Dr Jean Dodds never ending research, today we don't have to keep giving them Boosters. It is our choice now to educate ourselves and decide what we think is the best protocol for our dogs.
 
My dogs are rescue dogs, so I had no way of knowing as to whether they were given any shots at all. So for them they received their booster shot when I got them and they will never be given another one. Last year Princess had a mild reaction to the rabies shot, which is a three year shot. At the end of the three years I will be forced into telling the town that I don't have her anymore,  just so that I don't have to give her another one. She is licensed through the town because she was a shelter dog and I have to show proof that she is vaccinated every three years in order to renew the license or show that I don't own her.
 
Gigi was a private rescue, she got her Booster, but because she is about 5-6 years old, she probably did have
a rabies shot some where along the line. I don't have to worry about her with wildlife, because the only thing we have are squirrels. And again their hasn't been a rabies case in over 20 years statewide, so I doubt that she will ever get a rabies shot.
 
Here are the links again, just in case anyone missed them in the previous post.
 
 
 
 
 
    Peggy & The Girls
 
Don't Buy, Adopt & Save A Life!
                 
                  
 
"Until there are none...Rescue One"
 
 
 
-------Original Message-------
 
Date: 2/6/2011 1:19:25 PM
Subject: [Chihuahuas] Vaccination question
 
 
If you acquire a puppy that is 15 weeks old and has never been vaccinated, do you still need to give 3 sets of shots 3 weeks apart? My vet is closed today so I decided to put the question to the group and see what you-all have to say. Thanks.

Laura

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