dog shots

Question
Hi
I am hearing rumors that dogs annual shots are bad and causing cancers, etc.
I have actually seen a dog be put down due to a booster the vet notified her that it was due and admitted it.
I am not going to kill my dog for a booster, what is doing on here?
Thank YOu

Answer
Hi, there is a lot of talk about dogs being over-vaccinated now a days.  It sounds like the dog you are talking about might have had a bad reaction to a vaccine.  The only thing that they are saying about over-vaccinating is that vaccinating can sometimes be unnecessary.  The bad thing about not vaccinating is that you don't know when the vaccine actually is gone in the dog's system unless you run titers (a particular blood test that tests how much immunity your dog currently has built up in their blood stream for a certain disease) on the dog to see how much immunity the dog is currently carrying in their system at a certain point in time.  The bad part about these tests is that one, they are expense, two you have to run them on particular diseases (one for distemper, one for parvo etc) and finally they don't tell you when the dog's immunity will be running out on that particular disease so you won't know when to vaccinate again unless you run titers again.  My best friend is a vet (she works for the agricultural department and also has a genuis IQ, so I tend to follow her wisdom on things) and I talked with her about this when the stories first came out.  She said that they had done tons of research and found that it was still better in the long run to vaccinate your dog, than take the chance that the immunity wears out at the wrong time and your dog picks up the disease.  If your dog gets too much vaccine in them, they will normally just pass it out as waste from the body.  These rumors have been going on for about two years now, and I personally (working with vets and all) have never seen any dog get sick or have any bad reactions from getting their annual shots.  If this is not reassuring to you, then sometimes it is best to follow whatever gut reaction you have, and use simple logic when it comes to this situation.  For example, don't ever miss a vaccine on a puppy as their immune system is always low as it hasn't built up over the years like an adult dog.  Hope this helps,

Dawn