Reply to : jelliot
Hi all. Just a question on the vax. This year for Gus annual vet visit I asked for titer rather than just do the distemper vaccination. The results were l:204 for the parvovirus and 1.16 for the distemper. Dr Rod said that was good enough for this year but he wished it were higher. He said we should be OK for another year but would need the distemper vax next year. I thought I had read somewhere in this forum but could not find it, that even though the tests were low that didn't mean the protection was not there. Thanks for any info!Gus' paranoid mom, Anna
Hi Anna!
Great memory. I did post that somewhere at one point.
And that is my understanding in all that I have read from the proponents of "no vax...".
Let me see if I can give a fairly short explanation:
A titer reads the levels of immunity existing in the body to certain diseases - namely, parvo and distemper are the ones we do for the dogs.
Now, immunity is built in 2 ways - 1) from vaccinations (which do not need to be repeated once the immunity has been first established because the cells have "memory") and 2) from natural exposure - being around another sick animal or picking up droplets carrying the disease on the air, in animal waste when you walk in the park, etc. or when we bring it home on our clothing or shoes from wherever we have been.
For the longest time we were brainwashed to believe that our dogs MUST receive these vaccinations every year or they would certainly acquire some horrible disease and die an ugly death. Nobody had any proof of the need for annual vax, we just did whatever THEY told us to do. And THEY were being told by people in the vet schools who were listening to the manufacturers of the vaccine serums......etc. etc. etc. Lots of brainwashing going on here, (and lots of money being made) but no proof in testing.
Anyway, the result of all of that was yes, we did eradicate much of the distemper and a lot of the serious parvo problems by doing that, but we were also trashing our dogs' own immune systems with repeated chemicals they did not need. (And let's face it - eradication of some of these diseases totally is a joke because distemper and parvo are also carried by wild creatures - so even if every dog was vaccinated - these creatures still have the stuff. Parvo can lie dormant in the ground for up to a year....) Meanwhile, the vaccinating goes on. In reality, we were setting some dogs up to actually get the diseases because we had killed their own immunity systems with too many unnecessary vax.
Long story short - Dr. Jean Dodds - one of the foremost experts on this topic - puts right on her titer results papers that come back from her lab (Antech) words to the effect of "any measurable titer is evidence of immunity in the body"....We are BRAINWASHED (once again) to believe that a low titer = low immunity - but it does not. In my understanding, it simply means the dog has not been recently exposed to distemper and therefore his levels are not spiking, but if they are measured, they are certainly there. (After an exposure there naturally would be higher levels of immunity because the body reacts in that way to "invaders" - by creating more protective immunity).
There are some people who like to brag that their dogs consistently get very high titer results. But this is not a situation where their dogs are "healthier" or any more protected than dogs who got lower titer results, or that these individuals are feeding some magic potion to get higher titer results (LOL) - It means that their dogs are being naturally exposed on a regular basis and that keeps those immunity levels high! Wherever their dogs are going, or wherever they live, there is an abundance of distemper and/or parvo that keeps those levels high so that their dogs' bodies continually produce a lot of "antibodies" or immunity to disease. A weaker animal might get sick, but a healthy animal that has some immunity should be fine, and when the day comes that he walks through a "parvo-infested field" those immunity levels will spike on the titer tests for sure!
So, in my understanding, you just want your dog to have a measureable titer to both distemper and parvo. It doesn't have to be a HIGH "off the charts" number. It just needs to be there. That means that they will be able to "mount a defense" if their bodies are exposed, and if they are generally healthy anyway, they should not have a problem.
None of my dogs has been vaccinated for anything except puppy shots and now, unfortuantely, all except two (who got waivers due to health issues) have been re-vaccinated for rabies because my new kennel license requires up-to-date rabies vaccinations. But even those are not necessary (in my opinion) because the body of a dog remembers - just like the human body. We don't booster ourselves every year - or even every three years!
I live out in the open desert where you know the coyotes, the rabbits, the desert rats, the ground squirrels - some of these varmits MUST carry distemper and/or parvo. If lower titer numbers indicated my dogs didn't have any protection, then my dogs would have become sick. They have not. And some of my dogs have not had any shots for parvo or distemper since I lost Rave (to autoimmune) and Riot (to distemper) due to over-vaccination! That was about 10 years ago! (I do give puppy series and try to be sure that one of those is given after 4 months of age. I also wait on the first rabies as long as possible - 9 mo. to a year).
For a while I titered every year - but now I don't even do that. I have confidence that unless one of the dogs is weakened by another illness, the memory cells are there, the immunity is there, and, just like in humans, everything will be OK!
And Gus will be OK! No need for mama to worry - and no need for additional distemper in my opinion. But I'm not a vet and you should discuss all of this with your vet, or get another opinion, and do what you believe is right for Gus.
Sorry for the lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng post.
Tania
