Pup Inoculations.

[vicky payne]

I advise breeders to sell puppies unvaccinated. The reason is that 2 strain lepto vaccines are not compatible with 4 strain lepto vaccines and this can lead to repeat vaccinations being required. There are also various different opinions on how best to vaccinate a pup so I think it is best to allow the new owner and their vet to decide on the the approach to take. The other benefit is that it encourages the new owner to visit their vet in the first week of ownership for an independent health check.
Vets need to be giving owners better advice than 'don't take it out'! Lepto risk is low at an indoor puppy class, but I couldn't recommend a run in the park! It is perfectly acceptable for pups to go to classes with pups of the same age after their first jabs UNLESS the area is high risk for parvo.

[THEOLDMAN]

I advise breeders to sell puppies unvaccinated. The reason is that 2 strain lepto vaccines are not compatible with 4 strain lepto vaccines and this can lead to repeat vaccinations being required. There are also various different opinions on how best to vaccinate a pup so I think it is best to allow the new owner and their vet to decide on the the approach to take. The other benefit is that it encourages the new owner to visit their vet in the first week of ownership for an independent health check.
Vets need to be giving owners better advice than 'don't take it out'! Lepto risk is low at an indoor puppy class, but I couldn't recommend a run in the park! It is perfectly acceptable for pups to go to classes with pups of the same age after their first jabs UNLESS the area is high risk for parvo.

Many thanks for that Vicky, good to your views on the subject.

[RAH]

Vets need to be giving owners better advice than 'don't take it out'! Lepto risk is low at an indoor puppy class, but I couldn't recommend a run in the park! It is perfectly acceptable for pups to go to classes with pups of the same age after their first jabs UNLESS the area is high risk for parvo.

I knew I had read about a similar topic somewhere!

I had reason to visit the vet today regarding puppy vaccinations (oh yes, I did ) and I came out as I went in, no jabs. The vet was very good about it, explained all the risks, why he supports early vaccinations (because he follows the manufacturer's guidelines), advised on which vaccines they stock and which they use (DHP from Canigen and Lepto 2 for our area, Lepto 4 if you are travelling abroad with your dog), when he recommends to start taking the pup to socialisation groups with other pups (practice says after first jab, he prefers after second), when to start taking pup out on lead elsewhere (one week after second vaccine) ... and then he went and dropped the comment "Do not take your pup outside until it is has finished it's course of puppy vacs".

I just nodded because I didn't think much of it at the time, but when I got back into the car I starting recalling scraps of this thread and I wondered if he really meant exactly what he said.

How do you go about house-training if you can't take them outside?

[vicky payne]

Exactly!
The way I see it you aren't changing all your clothes and shoes when you come in to the house so your pup is exposed to some risk. If your garden is a haven for foxes, badgers, rats and squirrels then...maybe not! But otherwised supervised garden access is a calculated risk. I suppose some vets are just terrified that your pup will get sick, die, and you'll sue. But not letting pups out at all risks long term behavioural problems and behavioural problems are the biggest killer of dogs under 5years.

[James]

We used to get all our pups first jabs done as it also meant the vet had a good chance to run their hands over the pup and check hearts before they leave, then the new owners had the second jabs done and their vets do the same. This was so if there was anything wrong it would be spotted soon or if something goes wrong at a later date we couldn't have done anymore that we have done. This actually made more problems as Vicky has said because of the two or 2 types of jabs used now depending on where there go, so we have the micro chips done at the vets so this can still happen but the owners have both jabs done giving them 2 vet visits. After that along with health tests and tested in the field we as breeders feel we can't do anymore than that.

[vicky payne]

As all pups must now be chipped before sale, this is an ideal time to get a vet health check done. I throw it in with my chipping price (£15 per pup)

[Nickheref]

A rather sad story and I wondered if this has happened to anyone else as I seem to recall hearing something along the same lines.
A friend recently bred a litter and arranged with all of the the buyers except one to get the first vaccination done before they collected them, he checked that the buyers vets were happy with the type of vaccination being used and all went well. The one who didn't, wanted their own vet to do both. The pup was vet checked both before leaving the breeder and before the vaccination and all appeared fine, a few hours after it had it's first vaccination it began violently fitting and was kept under sedation for a period and appeared fine, four days later it began again and the decision was made to put it to sleep.
No one is pointing any fingers and it has all been dealt with in a grown up manner with my friend refunding the purchase price as a sign of good will even though he doesn't think there was a problem with the pup when it left him. It has just left the buyer and the breeder very sad and wondering if the vaccination had anything to do with it or there was an underlying problem with the pup that had not been picked up earlier.
Has anyone had anything similar? Just for the record I have never had any pup show any adverse response to vaccination.

[Sgurr]

Not vaccine related but a comment on fits. A few years ago we went on holiday to Cyprus and all the dogs went into kennels on Skye. The second day in the kennel, two of the dogs (mother and daughter) had fits - this had never happened before. Kennel owner phoned me in Cyprus, we went over all the possibilites but without a result. The other three dogs were fine, including another daughter. In the Cyprus weekly English newspaper, a day later, the Pet Page had a full report on contaminated dog food which was causing fitting in susceptible animals, especially pups. This was a major European manufacturer and there were batches all over Europe and the UK. I rang the kennel owner and asked her to change the food immediately, which she did, and neither dog every had another fit. So I'm throwing in the possibility that it was something dietary. The problem with the contaminated food which affected my adult dogs was discovered by vets and owners reporting the large numbers of puppies fitting to animal health authorities in Europe and then it was tracked back to the source manufacturer. Defra in the UK were useless, did not know of the issue and had no reporting system in place. Whereas Cyprus had all the information published in the local newspaper, including the numbers of every contaminated batch that had come into the island.
Very sorry to hear about this and so very sad for both the buyer and the breeder.

[Contender]

A rather sad story and I wondered if this has happened to anyone else as I seem to recall hearing something along the same lines.
A friend recently bred a litter and arranged with all of the the buyers except one to get the first vaccination done before they collected them, he checked that the buyers vets were happy with the type of vaccination being used and all went well. The one who didn't, wanted their own vet to do both. The pup was vet checked both before leaving the breeder and before the vaccination and all appeared fine, a few hours after it had it's first vaccination it began violently fitting and was kept under sedation for a period and appeared fine, four days later it began again and the decision was made to put it to sleep.
No one is pointing any fingers and it has all been dealt with in a grown up manner with my friend refunding the purchase price as a sign of good will even though he doesn't think there was a problem with the pup when it left him. It has just left the buyer and the breeder very sad and wondering if the vaccination had anything to do with it or there was an underlying problem with the pup that had not been picked up earlier.
Has anyone had anything similar? Just for the record I have never had any pup show any adverse response to vaccination.

It's a very sad story indeed and I really hope that the vets who treated the puppy, reported the incident. There are unfortunately many stories circling around with regards to adverse response to vaccinations but it in many cases it turns out that there isn't really any proof that it was caused by the vaccination and/or it was never reported

There is no question that L4 is 'stronger' than the old L2 and then there are the others which are given at the same time. I refuse to vaccinate any litters bred by myself as I feel they're way too young for it being 7-8 weeks of age and I advice my puppy buyers to wait until the puppy is at least 10 weeks of age. Lets face it: you're putting the puppy into a bit of a stress situation with it moving to a new home so just let it settle in for a couple of weeks. All puppies are well socialised with other dogs here anyway and they would have seen quite a few people as well but so many people are in a hurry and almost want to take the puppy straight to the vets and then 3 days later, they'll run around with the puppy at some country show

Anyway, please, please make sure that any adverse responses to ANY medication and vaccines are reported via the vets so it's all official as this it the only proper way to either get it changed or withdrawn from the market.

Natasha

[Nickheref]

Thanks very much for the responses, I will pass it on, don't think it was the food as I think he gave them a bag to go with so I would not have thought they changed the food so quickly. My friend is very upset as it was the first litter he has bred (he almost got boring telling me about them) and the one who died was his second choice to keep!!
A very good point about rushing to vaccinate, any pup here has mixed with my older dogs so trying to keep them "in quarantine" is fairly pointless.