Vaccination

Some of you may or may not know that I am a minimalist when it comes to vaccinating my dogs.

I comply with law regarding Rabies, however, I do not routinely vaccinate for anything else after puppyhood.

Penny had her last puppy shot at 11 weeks old. She is now 29 months old.

Earlier this month I had blood pulled for Parvo and Distemper titers.

Results were as follows:

A result greater than 1:80 is considered well protected.

Distemper titer = 1:320

Parvo titer = 1:10240

Yes, that is not a typo. 1:10,240

I just said wow. LOL

Holy crap...I think I'm getting titers done in May for Sawyer...

My vet is giving shots every 3 years now and I talked to them about doing titers on my boy before we do anything at all. I was told that they should at least have shots up until there second year from puppyhood so when Cai was 1 year he had his last and now that will be it for 3 years or more depending on what the titer shows. Red, do you have a chart/website of somesort on how to read the titers?

It varies from lab to lab, and on how they do the actual titer.

This particular one stated:

Vaccine titers of less than 1:40 suggest revaccination
Vaccine titers of 1:40 to 1:80 are considered marginal
Vaccine titers greater than 1:80 are considered good protection

Other labs might have different ratios than this particular one. It still measures the concentration of antibodies to the pathogen in the bloodstream of the subject animal.

Red..care to explain the titers more? I've heard of it and our vet suggested the bloodwork to get done for Buddy.. but I confess it's all still new to me.

A vaccination titer tests the levels of antibodies in a blood sample to a particular pathogen. Each lab may have different protocols, and so different values for protection levels. This one I just had done states values of greater than one part to 80 is well protected. Other titers may have different values. I've seen greater than 15, for example. It means nothing more than a certain way the particular lab has of doing their titers.

A titer is absolute certain beyond ANY shadow of a doubt PROOF that a dog is immune to a certain pathogen.

Penny's titers indicate she has 4 times the necessary immunity for Distemper, and 103 times the immunity levels needed to be protected from Parvo virus.

From these results, I would expect she has had an immunity challenge to Parvo virus fairly recently. Meaning she was exposed to it, and the immunity memory cells in her body from her past vaccination were activated.

I was considering asking my vet about pulling titers at our next appointment. I'm sure it varies from place to place, but can you give me an idea of the cost? How frequently do you pull them?

BB, I had one done on her when she was about 20 weeks. This one I just had done cost around $90 for the two, Parvo and Distemper.

I do them when I must prove immunity since I don't like to vaccinate.

I live in Massachusetts where everything is exspensive LOL! My vet charges around $70 dollars for a titer test.

I was just reading a website I found from the whole dog journal on titer testing. Thought I would share it! Red let me know if it is good or not

http://www.mountainsidedesigns.com/titer_test.htm