Author Topic: Vaccine to Help Dogs Fight Rattlesnake Venom  (Read 1883 times)

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Offline DeeDee

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Vaccine to Help Dogs Fight Rattlesnake Venom
« on: October 14, 2013, 09:23:49 PM »
Anyone want to take bets on how many dogs this stuff kills from reactions to the vaccine????

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Vaccine to Help Dogs Fight Rattlesnake Venom

A new vaccine has been developed to help dogs bitten by Rattlesnakes.

Although the vaccine is helpful, a veterinarian is still needed to ensure

the dog is cared for properly.

The vaccine does not cure the dog, it just buys time until a vet can be found.

http://foreverhomewanted.com/2013/10/13/vaccine-to-help-dogs-fight-rattlesnake-venom/
"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." Edward Hoagland
"Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog; but you're never friendless ever, if you have a dog."

Offline AnnStaub

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Re: Vaccine to Help Dogs Fight Rattlesnake Venom
« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2013, 02:17:21 AM »
I'm not really a huge fan of this vaccine. It just doesn't seem to do enough for me. My personal experience with this vaccine is that it has a high reaction rate among dogs. I don't have any statistics or anything, just what I've noticed personally.

Most of the reactions were mild and not life threatening, but it seemed like most dogs reacted to the vaccine in some way. Most of the time, the reactions were post-vaccine lumps which usually go down over some time. Although, I had seen one rupture which is kind of unusual. Our boss's dog got one and he was very painful in that spot for a good amount of time, which is not normal for vaccines in general. But other than that, I didn't notice anything else.

Offline DeeDee

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Re: Vaccine to Help Dogs Fight Rattlesnake Venom
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2013, 09:42:40 AM »
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My personal experience with this vaccine is that it has a high reaction rate among dogs. I don't have any statistics or anything, just what I've noticed personally.

That's exactly what most of us here are afraid of. Several of us have had dogs or cats that had bad reactions to vaccines, and the rest of us have read/heard too much about the negative effects of having too many vaccines thrown at our pets (and children) constantly when they're young.

My mom was a public health nurse, and even she thinks that having so many vaccines given to children is crazy. Both of our granddaughters have been given modified vaccine schedules so they didn't get so many at once. My mom thinking it's crazy to give children so many vaccines at once is what made me start looking up pet vaccines. Before then, the ill effects of neutering (See: http://www.caninesports.com/uploads/1/5/3/1/15319800/spay_neuter_considerations_2013.pdf~~2005 and http://www.naiaonline.org/pdfs/LongTermHealthEffectsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf~~2007) and processed dog foods from companies that make dogs sick with their "healthy" formulas, only to provide RX foods later when the pets get sick, had been my main areas of research.

Then Vlad's breeder started warning us about the dangers of too many vaccines before we got Vlad. I started doing a lot more research into that too. Barkly wasn't yet 1 yr old, so I think she's probably saved his immune system too--I found out that Corgis (Like Black Russians) have high incidences of reacting to some of the vaccines, and I HAD noticed him moping/dragging around after his puppy shots.

I worry so much about all these vaccines because I know what living with a compromised immune system is like. Food, neutering, and A LOT of vaccines are the only things I know about our past 3 dogs that has changed from all of our families' previous VERY healthy dogs. It's GOT to be something from one of those factors. You just don't suddenly have 3 dogs in a row with cancer without reason--and 2 of them have the same kind.

We're also not automatically giving flea and tick products. I don't put it on them until I notice someone scratching. At the moment, they've not had any in 8 weeks. (I suppose nothing's happening because we've had several chilly nights for the past 3 weeks.) I worry less about ticks than I used to, since I'm always brushing and massaging them (and I've never seen a tick on our dogs in years and years). I just don't want fleas in the house. But I've decided that if it's still keeping fleas away, then it's most likely still working on the ticks as well.
"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." Edward Hoagland
"Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog; but you're never friendless ever, if you have a dog."

Offline AnnStaub

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Re: Vaccine to Help Dogs Fight Rattlesnake Venom
« Reply #3 on: October 17, 2013, 12:56:14 AM »
Yea, it's about like with people it seems =/

I also don't always use flea/tick meds on my dog. Only if I see fleas and I check her often. We don't really have a tick problem here either. I have seen some horrible tick infestations before. Totally gross I hate ticks!

I read something in a veterinary magazine I got in the mail today that made me think of this rattlesnake vaccine. I'll have to go back and reread it, but it was some "product" to help with dogs who are bit by rattlesnakes. I guess not technically a product because it's plasma donated by dogs who were previously vaccinated with the vaccine. I guess they can use it to treat bites.

Offline DeeDee

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Re: Vaccine to Help Dogs Fight Rattlesnake Venom
« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2013, 01:37:45 PM »
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I also don't always use flea/tick meds on my dog. Only if I see fleas and I check her often. We don't really have a tick problem here either. I have seen some horrible tick infestations before. Totally gross I hate ticks!

I've gotta see one of them scratching before I'll put the new dose on them. For some reason, it's been almost 9 weeks now since I last used it--and I've bathed them in the middle of it. It's almost bath time again, so we'll see what happens after that. It's starting to get cool though, so maybe we won't need it again this year.

I had ticks dropping off the dogs right after we'd come into the house from walks last year; but luckily this year, I've only seen ticks on US, the humans, crawling around. I guess mowing and cleaning up around here has been keeping them in the back part that hasn't been cleaned off yet and in the neighbors' yards where they've got more growth. I don't take the dogs in the back part where it's still grown up because of all the cacti with inch-long barbs.

We'd been wondering about all those vaccines before we got the dogs, but I'd never done enough research into it until we got these two. Husband kept on worrying about the zoonotic ones, but like I told him--the dogs have to get it first, and that seems a bit unlikely considering all the newer info on vaccination-longevity as long as they get a couple of puppy shots if we keep their immune systems at peak with the way we're feeding them. He was still kind of on the fence until the new vet said that doing titers was just fine.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2013, 01:41:29 PM by DeeDee »
"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." Edward Hoagland
"Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog; but you're never friendless ever, if you have a dog."

Offline AnnStaub

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Re: Vaccine to Help Dogs Fight Rattlesnake Venom
« Reply #5 on: October 17, 2013, 04:13:18 PM »
The main zoonotic one we see here is Leptospirosis. I've actually handled several dogs with Lepto and never become sick with it thankfully. My last job was all hyper about sending us to the doctor if we touched a dog with Lepto... which is fine I guess but the doctors never really did anything to us.

Offline DeeDee

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Re: Vaccine to Help Dogs Fight Rattlesnake Venom
« Reply #6 on: October 17, 2013, 05:20:18 PM »
Reading the info here in 2011 is what made us decide against vaccinating at all against that:

http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/lepto-comeback/

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The problem is that the Lepto vaccine may be the very thing causing Lepto in dogs. The May 2011 issue of the Veterinary Record has an interesting article entitled “Urinary shedding of spirochaetes in a dog with acute leptospirosis despite treatment”. This short communication documents ongoing urinary shedding of spirochetes in a Labrador Retriever with acute Leptospirosis, despite treatment with doxycycline for seven days, highlighting a significant zoonotic risk. What was most interesting is that the dog had been vaccinated for Lepto within the previous six months.
"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." Edward Hoagland
"Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog; but you're never friendless ever, if you have a dog."

Offline AnnStaub

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Re: Vaccine to Help Dogs Fight Rattlesnake Venom
« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2013, 09:11:48 PM »
Very interesting! I've never seen or heard of that happening before. One case that has always stuck with me was a middle aged chihuahua who got very sick with Lepto. Our clinic did not vaccinate smaller dogs for Lepto. I guess the people had some rats around.

Another thing is that the vaccine doesn't protect against all strains of Lepto anyways. Just like with other vaccines.

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