I remember reading a thread here where someone purchased a vaccine for their dog but did not administer it, and used the sticker from the purchased vaccine as a proof of vaccination for their dog.

Does this actually work?

If so, can I buy my own rabies vaccine when my pup is "due" for a booster next year and just say that I gave it to him when I really didn't?

My pup is 10 months old now, he's only received parvo, distemper and rabies when he was younger, and I don't ever want him vaccinated again. In fact, if I knew then what I know now, I probably would've skipped the vaccines altogether in the first place.

The law in my city requires rabies every year, but it's entirely up to the owner whether or not to comply with that (it's not enforced). My vet (who's been practicing for a long time and who we've been with for over 10 years now) is fine with the raw feeding and my no more vaccine plans.
He actually agrees about the problems with vaccine damages and never once asked me to reconsider my position

However, last time I went to the clinic we got another vet (much younger) who warned me that if I choose to avoid vaccinations for my pup, I run the risk of having him seized and destroyed by the city in the event of a local rabies outbreak!

I don't know if this is true, or if she was just trying to scare me. If possible, I'd like to have a way to fake a proof of vaccination for my pup so that he appears to be "up to date" on his shots, in case something does occur and the city starts asking questions.

Any experience or thoughts on the matter?

(Ps: I don't let my dogs run around biting people so I've never had to worry about proving their vaccination status. However I have no control over a potential rabies outbreak in the local wildlife... it's happened before many years ago and could very well happen again )

 Quote: yuko blum

....However, last time I went to the clinic we got another vet (much younger) who warned me that if I choose to avoid vaccinations for my pup, I run the risk of having him seized and destroyed by the city in the event of a local rabies outbreak!

I just got done reading a similiar law on the books here in Ohio......maybe true.

Ohio law states that a "quarantine" could be put into effect for dogs in an area heavyily infected with rabies and only under that situation would you have to worry. If laws are similiar in your area, an outbreak of rabies in the wildlife population may not always lead to a gov't sanctioned "quarantine" of all dogs in their homes and vaccination requirements.

Have you tried researching your local laws?

Yuko,
From what I know you cannot buy a rabies vaccine and administer it yourself. The vet has to sign a certificate saying that he administered the vaccine so I have never heard of one that would allow the vaccine to be given by anyone but themselves.
I too do not use the "recommended" vaccine schedule but I do vaccinate for rabies, use wormer and all dogs are on a monthly heartworm schedule also.

Here we are able to purchase vaccines, including rabies, but our town won't issue a license unless the rabies vaccine was given by a vet, and it's required be law in our state to give every three years. Unlicensed dogs can be siezed and destroyed, so here we're really over a barrel. The laws sound less stringent in your part of Canada, so you may be able to get away with keeping "records" and using stickers with dates next to them. I would talk to your usual, good vet if I were you since he may know a way around giving the vaccine that would still protect you legally.

 Quote: yuko blum

If so, can I buy my own rabies vaccine when my pup is "due" for a booster next year and just say that I gave it to him when I really didn't?

The law in my city requires rabies every year, but it's entirely up to the owner whether or not to comply with that (it's not enforced).

If possible, I'd like to have a way to fake a proof of vaccination for my pup so that he appears to be "up to date" on his shots, in case something does occur and the city starts asking questions.

(Ps: I don't let my dogs run around biting people so I've never had to worry about proving their vaccination status. However I have no control over a potential rabies outbreak in the local wildlife... it's happened before many years ago and could very well happen again )

From a parent's point of view; bad idea

Several months ago my son was bitten by a dog. Let's pretend it was your dog. Let me tell you Yuko, if you produced "papers" that did not accurately reflect your dog's rabies vaccination and my son ended up having to get treatment for rabies, I would go absolutely ballistic. I am not a litigious person but I'd do everything in my power to see to it that you saw more of your attorney than you saw of your dog. I completely understand that in order for my son to need treatment, your dog would have to have had rabies - I get it. And you'd say, "Oh, I'd know if he did", yada, yada. Well, sh*t happens and maybe the timing was all kinds of BAD and he got bitten prior to your seeing any symptoms.

Do you see my point? What you're suggesting...it's not worth it and, more importantly, it's not right.

OK, my parental rage is over...

Why don't you just live within the confines of the law and do the vaccine titer or whatever it's called - where you have him tested to see if the vaccine is still active (don't know if that's the correct term) and, therefore, hopefully skip a few years before he needs another vaccine?

Judy, that would be a complete non-issue.

If my dog ever did bite someone, I would NOT lie to them about my dog's vaccine status and they can decide for themselves whether to pursue treatment. I have morals, you know. Just because I care a great deal for my puppy's well-being and I'm trying to circumvent a stupid, harmful law does not mean I have no regards for a child's life

Besides, in your hypothetical scenario, checking a dog's vaccination status can lead to a false sense of security. Being vaccinated does not guarantee that the dog will not contract the disease. Heck, rabies has been known to incubate in an organism for 6 YEARS!

Titers are also not a good indicator of immunity. Detecting antibodies ONLY means that the individual has been exposed to the antigen in question.

You can show 0 titers and still be protected against a virus because you have memory cells created from the last exposure to that virus and they will re-activate when exposed again. The antibodies will follow.

Not wanting the city to impound and kill my dog because of some stupid law is my business. Besides, dog owners here have the right to not vaccinate their animals. If I want a piece of paper that might protect my pup from being destroyed without reason, I don't see how I'm violating anyone else's rights or safety.

James: that's good to know, hopefully the same applies to my city. I'll look into the laws here to be sure.

Carol: you're probably right, that would be too easy
I also have vaccinated for rabies, but honestly, the risk of my pup contracting rabies here is pretty much non-existent. If he ever got bitten by a skunk or raccoon, I'd report it to animal control, have the animal destroyed and its brain tested for rabies. If it turns out positive, I can get my pup on immediate rabies treatment (vaccines & rabies immunoglobulin) and his chances of survival will be pretty much 100%.
I also have my dogs on heartworm preventatives. Luckily, heartworm season is only a few months a year in Ontario. It's too cold for most of the year, lol.

Kristel: yikes, the laws sound very severe where you are!
Now why didn't I think of that? I could've just asked my (good) vet for advice. I trust his counsel and most importantly his COMMON SENSE, which seems to be sadly lacking in most other vets here.

Why am I making such a fuss over wanting to avoid unecessary vaccinations? My pup had a reaction to his last vaccine (even though I did only the absolute minimum); look what happened to him about a week after his last shot: http://www.gentlesoulsshepherds.com/vaccine_rash.jpg

I don't see the point of risking more severe damage by repeating the useless rabies vaccine every year for the rest of his life, just to live up to some stupid law http://www.gentlesoulsshepherds.com/mad.gif

Oh well, at least it's not an immediate concern. I can only hope that rabies will stay away from my city.

 Quote: yuko blum

Judy, that would be a complete non-issue.

If my dog ever did bite someone, I would NOT lie to them about my dog's vaccine status and they can decide for themselves whether to pursue treatment.

If I want a piece of paper that might protect my pup from being destroyed without reason, I don't see how I'm violating anyone else's rights or safety.

Oh. Phew!! I thought you suddenly turned daft on me!! Good to see I misunderstood !

Your second comment in the quote above - maybe it's my bedtime but I don't understand. Are you saying "destroyed without reason" in relation to the vaccine causing possible vaccinosis or do you mean "destroyed without reason" because if he bit someone, your local powers-that-be would have him put down?

If you were a member of my club and I even THOUGHT you were lying about Rabies Vacs I'd move to have you banned. Bite training accidents happen. Hell I got a broken skin bite farting around with a tug with my own dog. I would insist that club members keep thier dogs UTD on shots and wormed IAW licensed kennel requirements


ED's COMMENTS EDITED IN:

Dennis - a dog with Rabies is going to be sick - its not going to be at a training club doing bite work.

Another note on titers.

Many people seem to believe that good titers = immunity, when that is absolutely incorrect.

Look at HIV: people who have contracted the virus show antibodies in their blood. That's how HIV is diagnosed, by the way. The blood sample is very easily and quickly tested with an ELISA (enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay) where the assay solution will change colour if the HIV antibodies are present.
It's then considered "tested positive" and the person is considered doomed.

The titers indicate an activate immune response to the virus, but it certainly does NOT mean that the response will defeat the virus. In HIV, it's clear that it doesn't.

Whenever an organism is exposed to a (pathogenic) virus or bacterium, it will mount an immune response and antibodies appear in very high concentrations very quickly. Sometimes the immune system wins, and the pathogen is defeated, other times, the very high titers are not enough and the organism dies.

The ONLY thing that titers are useful for are to test whether or not a vaccine "takes". If you vaccinate, wait a week or two and detect 0 titers, then you can conclude that the vaccine was ineffective.

If you wait long enough, titers won't even tell you that!
In fact, you could be exposed to a virus, build immunity against it and create a lot of antibodies.

If you aren't exposed to that same virus again for years, your antibody levels will go down very quickly and may even become completely undetectable (titer would read 0).

However, you will still retain those important immune memory cells, and should you ever be exposed to the virus again, those memory cells will immediately reactivate and mount an immune response.

The advantage to having had previous exposure is that the antibody creating process is slow the first time around, usually too slow to prevent you from getting sick - unless your other types of immune responses can overcome the pathogen. The second time around, the memory cells will greatly accelerate the antibody-making process, so you are far less likely to get sick again from the same virus!

Depending on the virus' rate of mutation, you could be immune for life after getting exposed once.


Vaccines supposedly mimick this process, although it's not easy to select the right antigens (molecular antibody targets).

In the end, it just comes down to speed. Previous exposure = a quicker, more efficient response. No previous exposure = same antibody response, but far slower.

How much research has gone into developing an HIV vaccine? Enormous amounts, with incredible funding. And yet, nothing to show for it.
The virus' hypermutator phenotype makes this acquired immunity ineffective because the virus keeps mutating so quickly that the antibodies that worked for the first few weeks become ineffective, and the body constantly has to activate new antibody-producing cells.
Unfortunately, as I stated earlier, this process is very slow and the immune system simply cannot keep up with the mutations of the virus (not to mention that HIV destroys a vital part of the immune system) and is eventually overcome.


Anyway, sorry for the long explanation. I'm just trying to give an idea of how vaccines work exactly, and what titers do and don't indicate.


If titers were the magical solution to finding out immune status, we wouldn't even be having these discussions. It's just not that simple