The basic premise of vaccination is that by vaccinating your pet you make their immune system aware of a certain disease. If your pet then comes into contact with that disease, its immune system is primed to re-spond rapidly and will be able to effectively fight off the infection. Vaccinations work and have been responsible for dramatically reducing disease incidence in both hu-mans and animals.
The incidence of side effects or illness caused by the vaccine is minimal and is usually limited to a mild temperature, malaise and very rarely urticaria (hives) Vaccinations cannot cause the disease that you are vaccinating for. We do very occasionally see cases of where a vaccinated animal develops a disease that it has been vacci-nated for. This can be due to a variety of factors such as: The animal could have already been incubating the disease then it was vaccinated; The vaccine may not have been stored or administered properly; The animal was fighting some other disease at the time of vaccination; The animal could be undergoing other stressors at the time of vaccinating (like going into kennels directly after being vaccinated); Different brands of vaccine were used..
The recommend vaccination protocol for both puppies and kittens is either at 8, 12 and 16 weeks or 6,9,12, and 16 weeks. The reason that we need to give 3-4 vaccines to the younger animals, is because we cannot be sure when the level or protection they get from their Mom starts to wane, and it often takes more than one vaccination to generate an adequate immune response. Please also be very skeptical of everything that you may read about vaccines on social media. The majority of the reports / articles out there have little scientific evidence and are often based on a lay-person’s percep-tion and not the proven facts. If you have any questions or concerns about vaccinating, please feel free to discuss it with one of our vets.
We realize that this can be a costly exercise so in an effort to promote good vaccination protocols we will be running a special: if your puppy or kitten’s first two vaccinations are done with us; we will administer the third vaccination free of charge. This offer will run for a limited time only.
Graph showing the effec-tiveness of vaccinations in decreasing disease mortal-ity in humans.