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Puppy Dog Rabies Shots by Dr. Ken Overmeyer
Hi. My name is Dr. Ken Overmeyer from Shorewood Animal Hospital in Shorewood, Illinois. Thanks for watching our video today. Today I will be talking a little bit about dog vaccination, from puppyhood to adulthood and our philosophy about it. There’s been a lot of controversy over vaccinations in the last 7-8 years, so we’d like to tell you how we, at Shorewood Animal Hospital, feel. First of all the first vaccination is usually given at 6-8 weeks of age, depending on whether or not the puppy has been exposed to numerous other dogs. If the puppy comes from a large population, the first vaccine is given at 6 weeks of age and a re-boost at 8 weeks of age. I will be talking about vaccinations from 8 weeks on and that’s typically what most of our dogs get.
Puppy Dog Rabies Shots – Vaccines
The vaccine that we use here at Shorewood Animal Hospital is called distemper and it really has 4 vaccines in it: distemper, hepatitis, parvo and parainfluenza. We do not vaccinate for corona anymore since it is a self-limiting virus. If the dog gets it, it usually goes away. We really don’t want to give anymore vaccines that are unnecessary. So, we give our first distemper vaccine at 8 weeks of age. The next distemper vaccine is at 12 weeks of age, 4 weeks after the first one. At that point, we also give what is called bordetella commonly known as kennel cough vaccination. We only do this once. It is an intra-nasal vaccine and it is what we call a point or source of infection vaccine and we don’t need multiple boosters initially like we do with distemper. So at 16 weeks of age, we give the last distemper vaccination, at which time we also give the rabies vaccination. The distemper vaccine is used for our dogs, a non-interventive vaccine that tend to cause the least reaction than the more traditional vaccines. Again, like any vaccine there is always the chance for reaction and this is something you may want to discuss with us in further detail later. So far we have covered the puppy series.
Puppy Dog Rabies Shots – Benefits of Vaccinating
There are a couple of other vaccines that we give, not a part of the base vaccines, but given as needed. Those are the lyme disease and leptospirosis vaccines. Lyme disease as most of us know is a multi-organ disease caused usually by the deer tick. Leptospirosis or spirochete disease is bacteria that the pet can get by coming in contact with the urine of an infected animal, typically raccoons, skunks and opossums. So if you live in a more rural area, it is important to get the leptospirosis and lyme vaccines. Again, that is boosted at 12 weeks of age and at 16 weeks of age. We then have the animals come back the next year at which time we repeat the distemper, the kennel cough, rabies and if needed, the leptospirosis and lyme vaccines. We here at Shorewood Animal Hospital follow the guidelines of the AVMA which have recognized distemper titers lasting up to 3 years. So, we automatically only boost once every 3 years on distemper. Rabies vaccine is a 1-year or 3-year vaccine depending on what you prefer. The kennel cough, lyme and leptospirosis are given every year. Research indicated that those last only a year. One thing we haven’t talked about and which I’d like to cover very quickly is heartworm disease, a disease that is transmitted from dog to dog via mosquitoes that carry infected blood. We automatically put puppies on heartworm prevention before they are 6 months of age, that because of their lifecycle they don’t need a blood test. When they come back for their yearly vaccination, even if they are on prevention all year long, we’d like to take blood tests not only for heartworm, but also for the presence of lyme, ehrlichia or anaplasma all of which are deer tick diseases which we have seen an increase over heartworm within the last 5 years. So this is just a part of our wellness program. We have tablets as well to prevent these problems. We hope this helps in expressing our thoughts about vaccinations here at Shorewood Animal Hospital.
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Youtube Title: Puppy Vaccinations by Veterinarian In Shorewood IL 60404
First vaccination is usually given at 6-8 weeks of age, depending on whether or not the puppy has been exposed to numerous other dogs..
