Can getting your dog kennel cough vaccination be damaging to its health?

[paganmolloy]

I don't actually have a dog but a friend won't get his dog vaccinated as he thinks it could have potential harmful effects. As such, the dog cannot go to kennels and it becomes a struggle to get folk to look after it when they go on holiday. Just curious as I'd never heard of this

I view the kennel cough vaccination similar to the flu jab. It is a live vaccine that reduces the chances of getting kennel cough which is very contagious. I get mine done because in an emergency if I needed to put him in kennels you need to have had it 1-2 weeks prior otherwise I probably wouldn't bother with it as you can still get kennel cough.

Our dog has always got kennel cough following the vaccine, so the vet recommended that we don't give it to him again. Fortunately we have people who look after him when we're away but I do think about what we would do in an emergency kennel situation.

It definitely made my old boy poorly for about a week after the vaccine. But he needed to go to kennels, so that was that.

I don't bother as I never kennel and it only covers about 3 out of 5 strains.

I don't bother either and my dog has had kennel cough. He wasn't very ill - it was like a cold really.

There are a lot of dog anti vaxxers out there. I view them in the same way as I view human anti vaxxers

Mine gets the vaccine , he had KC when we got him as a pup from Battersea which has left him with tracheal problems and he still seems to catch KC very easily despite not going to any kind of dog care and only mixing with a few dogs . I find that with the vaccine the attacks are short and fairly painless i.e. No ABs needed just tixylix . Personally I think too few people take KC seriously as it can be really nasty with lasting effects .

I don't give KC nor do I vaccinate for the same reasons - the risks far far outweigh the 'pros'

I work as a vet assistant and we see loads of dogs who are dealing with health problems due to vaccinations and kennel cough jabs.

A bit of honey several times throughout the day for a dog with a cough goes down amazingly. I know KC can be dreadful in rare cases but it still doesn't justify the vaccine.

For those wondering about the impact of vaccination on auto-immune disease in dogs, this is useful read

The article ends by saying, 'While caution is warranted, and certainly unnecessary vaccination should be avoided on principle, there is no justification for extreme and confident claims that vaccines are a major cause of these autoimmune diseases in our pets or that what risk may exist outweighs the benefits of appropriate vaccination.'

sparkling , the KC vaccine is not a jab , please check your facts , and frankly I think you should add on any post where you quote that you are a veterinary assistant that you are an assistant to a vet that treats naturally and doesn't believe in chemicals etc IIRC from a previous thread . My dog would definitely disagree with your views seeing as he nearly died from KC and it's complications , honey would not have saved him .

it's very misleading to only tell half the story of your employment status @sparklingraspberry

And I'll point out here that every substance is a 'chemical' shall i....

BTW, yes, I have had both of my dogs done with booster jabs and KC stuff. They have to in order to board, but I would anyway

Kennel Cough vaccine can leave lasting effects in my experience. I know someone whose dog was left with a perminant hacking cough and others that have developed it shortly after vaccinating.

Like the flu vaccine the kennel cough vaccine only covers one of many many different strains (the most common one) so does not guarentee that your dog will not get kennel cough. In a healthy animal although irritating kennel cough is not serious and normally clears up by itself within a couple of weeks with a bit of cough syrup. For this reason I have always thought it a pointless exercise.

I have never had my dogs vaccinated for kennel cough and in my experience provided the dog has had its main vaccinations most kennels/dog borders will except them without the kennel cough vaccine, they just make you sign a disclaimer. My dogs are old now and have had kennel cough a grand total of once when they were young which lasted about a week and I suspect was picked up at a dig show.

Both my dogs caught it, one had had the vaccine as part of his puppy first vaccinations and the other was older and I don't do the boosters.
They coughed for one night and a couple of days and then were fine after that. I avoided the park for a while to be sure they weren't contagious but they could have picked it up from anywhere they'd walked.

In my experience kennels don't ask for dogs to have kennel cough vaccine any more, although other vacs need to be up to date of course.
My dogs have been to 3 different kennels in the past 4 years and none of them have asked for KC vac. Although one said it was needed on their website, when I queried was told the web site info was out of date.

Our dog went for a weekend boarding last month, KC vac was required. She's had the vac twice now and been fine both times.

My dog was very poorly with KC after he was never vaccinated as he would never be in a kennel. The vet told me it can be caught else where! He's always vaccinated now wouldn't ever want to see him that poorly again If I can help it I know it's not a 100% effective and he can still catch it.

Yeah it's called kennel cough but it's like a common cold. They can pick it up from anywhere. I used to walk my dogs with a vet and she said she never gets her dogs vaccinated against it as there's so many strains and the vaccine only covers a couple of them.