The Buzzer (7 yr old Airedale x GSD mix) has just been diagnosed with leptospirosis. He was low energy and uninterested in food Monday - very abnormal for him - was somewhat better Tuesday, but by Wednesday p.m. he was lethargic, stiff, reluctant to move and had abdominal pain. We were at the vet first thing the next morning: my very alert veterinarian ran blood and urine tests and put lepto on her list of possibilities as soon as she saw the Buzzer's elevated creatinine levels. A PCR-based urine test came back positive for lepto today. Fortunately my vet hadn't wanted to wait - Buzz was already hospitalized on IV antibiotics and fluids as a precaution. I visited Buzz this morning and he already seems more cheerful. He's not out of the woods yet, but the vet and I are cautiously optimistic that we took sufficiently rapid action that he will recover without major permanent kidney or liver damage.

My other dog (4 yr old GSD) seems fine, but we have started him on a 2-week course of amoxicillin as a precaution. I have never vaccinated any of my dogs against lepto because of the poor reputation of the vaccine for adverse reactions and limited efficacy against the multiple strains of lepto that are out there. Now of course my vet is seriously on my case to vaccinate - we live out of town where the dogs can come into contact with urine from wildlife that carry lepto (raccoons, deer and small rodents are the main hosts around here), but that's been true for 20 years and I've never had a problem before.

Has anyone else out there had experience with dogs getting lepto? And what are your thoughts on the current lepto vaccines?

Lepto is hard to vaccinate for, but...

I have never seen lepto in a vaccinated dog.

My country dogs are vaccinated against lepto every 3 years.

You are lucky your vet is on the ball. It can be a hard diagnosis, though it is MUCH more common lately. When I go to vet continuing education classes, Lepto is often discussed these days.

What to do? Well, if you dont' mind giving antibiotics occasionally then I suppose you can just treat it if it occurs. That is what people who don't want to vaccinate say, anyhow. The thing is, the dog can get pretty sick really fast, as you have seen.

I vaccinate, and I give out antibiotics pretty freely for any lameness.

Is a dog who has been exposed (and recovered) immune to future infection? (Just curious.)

As veterinary bacterin vaccines require 2 annual booster immunization (1 every 6 months), the duration of immunity is likely to be short-term. So if a dog has been exposed and recovered from an infection, he will likely have a moderate protection for a short period of time and only if he get infected witht the same serovar.....Indeed the current vaccines do not confer cross-protective immunity to serovars that are not present in the vaccine....there are more than 200 serovars...

Also, it is important to know that lepto vaccines are generally designed and evaluated for the ability to prevent clinical signs of disease and should generally not be expected to completely prevent infection and shedding.