I just recently had our Corgi pup vaccinated for his second puppy shots, Distemper and Parvo. The vet told us that beginning the first of the year they are going to start including Lepto vac in the combo. He said that the reason for that is because Lepto can be transfered to humans, and that it recently sent a vet tech at his office to the hospital with lepto. He scared me by pointing out that it could be transfered to my 7 year old son.

He did say that they are discussing whether or not to give it to small breed dogs because the risks were so high. He recommended that we give it to our Corgi pup, because we live in the woods and it's often transfered via coyotes, etc. I opted not to until I found out some more info.

Generally I think less is more with vaccinations, but of course, when it comes to an illness that could send my son to the hospital...it makes you paranoid! The vet said they see about 7 cases a year of Lepto. Is it just me or does that seem like too few cases to start including a risky vaccine into standard puppy shots?

Has anyone heard of Lepto being transfered to humans?

Lepto can be contracted by people, yes -- most often people who work cleaning up after dogs (and being therefore exposed to their urine), I've read. One of these articles referenced below mentions 100-200 in the U.S. per year (according to the CDC), with half of them in Hawaii.

This is a radio station's report, but it's a pretty good overview, IMO.

http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/pet/lepto.htm

Lepto is one of those things where the vaccines have trouble keeping up with the various strains mutating and developing.

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_canineleptospirosis.html

http://www.canismajor.com/dog/lepto.html#Trans

Small dogs are at the most risk from vaccination complications, according to all the material I have seen.

Thanks for that link. It sounded like it was quietly in favor of getting a larger dog vaccinated for Lepto. I'm still torn though. I live on Cape Cod in MA where there are few distictions between the woods and someone's backyard, so I suppose we could be at higher risk here.

I certainly won't make the decision to vaccinate my Corgi pup until he's bigger, and certainly not the GSD pup we have coming in a few weeks. As it stands, I'm not getting my adult Corgi vaccinated for Lepto yet either, though. Not until I know how high the risk vs. benifit is, and hopefully some other people will way in with an opinion.

Lepto vaccines really are useless in many situations. First, it THE vaccine that is repsonsible for MOST of the anaphylactic shock in animals. It is also a very damaging vaccine. Next, it is a VERY short lived vaccine. So your dog is likley only covered for 4 months. So, now you have a VERY potentially dangerous vaccine to give your dog and you are going to give it every 4 months to make sure your dog is 'covered'? If you don't do that often , then why bother doing it that in the first place as your dog won't be covered for the majority of the time (if you do it yearly).

Then if you look at the stats, there are over 70 strains of lepto and the vaccine covers 2-4 (more recent ones cover 4) strains. In MANY cases the strain your dog will get from the enviroment is not even in the vaccine.

So, unless your dog is SUPER high risk for coming into contact (few are) this is not a useful vaccine.

(I did a bunch of research on it when one of my pups was sold to a conservation officer for use on the 'field' and his vet recommended it).

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Lepto vaccines really are useless in many situations. First, it THE vaccine that is repsonsible for MOST of the anaphylactic shock in animals. It is also a very damaging vaccine. Next, it is a VERY short lived vaccine. So your dog is likley only covered for 4 months. So, now you have a VERY potentially dangerous vaccine to give your dog and you are going to give it every 4 months to make sure your dog is 'covered'? If you don't do that often , then why bother doing it that in the first place as your dog won't be covered for the majority of the time (if you do it yearly).

Then if you look at the stats, there are over 70 strains of lepto and the vaccine covers 2-4 (more recent ones cover 4) strains. In MANY cases the strain your dog will get from the enviroment is not even in the vaccine.

So, unless your dog is SUPER high risk for coming into contact (few are) this is not a useful vaccine.

(I did a bunch of research on it when one of my pups was sold to a conservation officer for use on the 'field' and his vet recommended it).

All this PLUS the tiny number of 100-200 human cases -- half of which are in one state (Hawaii) and most of the others being kennel employees, as opposed to children with a pet dog.

My vet does not vaccinate against it except in special circumstances. I can understand the completely human response of the O.P.'s vet, whose office experienced one of the rare human cases, but maybe it's good that we keep in mind how that would color a vet office's outlook.

my dog's breeder is adamantly opposed to vaccinating for lepto, and she is a vet tech. she says it is everywhere in the environment, and the puppies are innoculated against it just by being in the same environment with the disease. and the vaccine is useless and dangerous.

the only time she has had dogs come down with it was when she pet sit for friends who left their out-of-state dogs with her at her home. the dogs had no prior exposure to lepto in their own environment, and they contracted it and died. but in some 20 odd years, her own puppies have never gotten it, growing up outdoors in the same environment, where she knows the disease is in the water on her property, despite not being vaccinated.

so it seems that if the dog is raised around it, it is unlikely to be an issue.

I'm glad I decided not to give it to my dog. I was opposed to it at first, but you know how that protective instinct kicks in when someone says that your child might be at risk! <img src="http://www.leerburg.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

The good thing about my vet is that when I told him how I was opposed to getting most vaccines in general because of vaccinosis, he completely understood and told me to do my own research. He also said that his office is concerned about it, too, and they are planning on decreasing the recommended yearly vaccinations down to every three years. That's a good start, anyway, and it shows that the tide is changing (even if it's slow and tentative!) in terms of annual vaccines. He said that he understood doing titer tests instead of annual vaccines but did caution me that the titer report isn't always conclusive or proof of immunity, but he fully respected any decision I made.

It's nice to have a vet that respects your decisions and isn't pushy!