Are We Over-Vaccinating Our Dogs?

We got an email from long-time iBostonTerrier.com reader and father to Rudy the Boston Terrier, Stuart, about something that we are happy to share and discuss with all of you. When it comes to health issues regarding our Boston Terriers, it’s best to have as much information as possible and we are happy to provide it so that you may make the best decisions for your dogs. Stuart wrote his thoughts to us and included a link that we’d like to share with you.

“This topic has recently been something I have been looking into because Rudy is soon due to have his vaccines again.  He is now almost 3 years old and has had all typical vaccines each year.  However, I have been reading quite a bit lately about how it is very bad for the health of the dog to keep on vaccinating for the same pathogen every year and that doing so can cause a whole host of medical problems, including cancer.  If you think about it, people get vaccinated against a pathogen when they are a child and maybe get a booster.  People do not keep getting vaccinated for the same thing over and over again every year for their entire life.   Once vaccinated, most people and dogs develop sufficient antibodies so that they do not need any further vaccinations.  The existence of appropriate antibodies for a particular pathogen can be verified by giving your dog a teeter test.   The problem is, however, that if you take your dog for boarding or daycare, most facilities will not allow you to do so without the vaccinations, even if you show the facility teeter test results demonstrating that your dog does not need a particular vaccination because of the presence of enough antibodies for the particular pathogen.   Below is a great link to some science demonstrating why over vaccinating our dogs is causing a lot of health problems.  If you ask people who have owned dogs for a long time, many of them will tell you that they have noticed quite a bit more cancer in dogs over the last few decades then what was seen before, and many are attributing this to over vaccination.”

Read this article and let us know your thoughts in the comments section. This isn’t a matter of right or wrong, each pet parent will have their own thoughts on this. http://www.dogsadversereactions.com/scienceVaccineDamage.html