It’s a given that you love your dog and see him as an important member of your family. (If you didn’t love him, you wouldn’t be reading this column…) You want to ensure that he receives the best possible healthcare, which includes all the vaccines your veterinarian recommends…or does it? Before you decide that yours truly is a total nut job (trust me, I’ve been called worse), let me explain.

There are vaccines…and then there are vaccines. Huh?? The one vaccine that I DO recommend (and is an absolute requirement in most communities) is the rabies vaccine. Rabies, which is spread through the saliva of infected animals, is a horrible virus which attacks the grey matter in the dog’s brain as well as its central nervous system. It is nearly 100 percent fatal, and is highly contagious to other animals as well as humans. Pet parents MUST have their dogs vaccinated against rabies in order to get them licensed. A 3-year vaccine is available, but puppies generally receive a 1-year dose until they are mature enough to handle the more potent vaccine. Also, if your dog attends doggie daycare (as mine do), or frequents the local dog park, or is boarded when you take trips, he will be required to receive a bordetella vaccine.

Veterinarians advise their clients to vaccinate their dogs against a number of other diseases as well, such as canine distemper, parvovirus (another nasty, often-fatal disease), leptospirosis (a bacterial infection picked up from water which also can prove fatal and can be spread to humans), hepatitis, parainfluenza…the list goes on. Some of these are often bundled into a ‘cocktail’ referred to as DHLPP (for distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis, parvovirus, and parainfluenza). The caring pet parent wants their dog to be as disease-free as possible, and believes that ‘doctor knows best’, so their dog receives all the recommended shots. Fast-forward a few days or a week when the dog begins exhibiting symptoms of allergies: itching, hot spots, impacted anal glands (with the accompanying ‘butt-scootin’ boogie’), coughing…or maybe he’s vomiting and has diarrhea. Any or all of these could be reactions to the vaccinations he just received.

Veterinarians who practice conventional Western medicine are taught in school that vaccinations are a necessity to keep pets healthy. However, according to Patricia Jordan, DVM, a holistic veterinarian and a regular contributor to Dogs Naturally Magazine, while just 15 percent of veterinary income is from vaccines, 60 percent of income is from treating vaccine-induced diseases. So, in a nutshell, the vet makes a little money from giving the shots and then makes 4 times as much from treating the end result. I am not condemning Western medicine or the veterinarians who practice it because I feel that these doctors have the best intentions. I do think, however, that, just like there are a whole lot of ‘people’ doctors who are pill- and medicine-pushers, so there are also veterinarians who wear that lab coat. (I like to refer to these as ‘band-aid doctors’ because many of them treat the symptoms of a particular issue rather than trying to discover the root cause and treating THAT in order to permanently eliminate the issue.)

So what can the loving pet parent do to ensure the optimum health, longevity, and well-being of their CBF (canine best friend)? The first thing is to consult with your regular veterinarian to see if he/she performs tests called ‘titers’. These are tests to determine the amount of immunity remaining in the dog’s system from a prior vaccination. For example, a dog is vaccinated for distemper, with the vet’s advice that the dog will require a shot every three years to continue maximum immunity. Three years pass, but before the pet parent schedules the vaccine, he has a titer test performed on the dog, which shows that the dog still has several years’ immunity left.

In fact, the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) assembled a task force in 2003 (11 years ago!) to determine if pets were victims of over-vaccination. Their conclusions were interesting to say the least. They released a statement indicating that the ‘core vaccines’ (DHLPP) had a minimum duration of 7 years(!) but that ‘revaccination every 3 years is considered protective.’ In a subsequent statement, one of the veterinarians who participated in the task force admitted that the 3-year recommendation was ‘completely arbitrary…with no science behind the recommendation’ (Dogs Naturally Magazine, March-April 2014). Say WHAT????

Next, think about this: you have your kids vaccinated against certain diseases (such as chicken pox) when they’re young, correct? Do you continue to have them vaccinated every 3 years for the same diseases? I don’t think so. So why would it make sense to keep getting your CBF vaccinated over and over for the same diseases when a simple titer test shows years of immunity left?

Hmmm…