In a vets opinion....

[MrsAntiSocial]

What would be your top ten healthiest breeds please?

I don’t tend to follow most vets. Some are incredible. We don’t vaccinate every year, we don’t feel kibble and we don’t use flea treatment
We don’t either.
Our dog gets a natural wormer and worm count, herbal flea repellant, she eats good quality tinned but had raw prior, she hasn’t had a vaccine in at least 4 years.
I fully intend to raise a second on minimal vaccines, herbal pest control and natural diet too

Border terriers def seem to live forever, can get skin issues but not too bad.
Anything that’s reasonably lean, medium size and has a normal length nose, so yes the old fashioned Heinz 57.
Jack russell type terriers pretty solid.
Don’t rule out chihuahuas, yes those are all theoretical issues but we have a lot of them on our books and very rarely see them for any of those issues. Teeth problems and the odd age related heart problem but they tend to make old bones relatively problem free.

@MrsAntiSocial

I don’t tend to follow most vets. Some are incredible. We don’t vaccinate every year, we don’t feel kibble and we don’t use flea treatment We don’t either. Our dog gets a natural wormer and worm count, herbal flea repellant, she eats good quality tinned but had raw prior, she hasn’t had a vaccine in at least 4 years. I fully intend to raise a second on minimal vaccines, herbal pest control and natural diet too

I had a minimal vaccine patient in last week.

He's dead of leptospirosis now 🤷‍♀️

I prefer sticking to the scientific evidence

The scientific evidence for lepto 4 is shaky at best and in reality probably negligent: side effects are not being reported. My neighbour’s dog never recovered from it - was told it was a “coincidence”.

I don’t go near any vet that doesn’t offer L2.

The decision to vaccinate for Lepto should be highly individualised based on local risk

I obviously don’t speak for all dogs, but I initially vaccinating because my dog got seizures after the boosters and after spot on.
Prior to that I had given the puppy vaccines and the boosters and used monthly spot on.

I was terrified thinking she had epilepsy (common in collies) but it’s been years and she hasn’t had another seizure since.
Unless epilepsy has big remission periods?
I don’t know, I’m not a vet.

@Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow

The scientific evidence for lepto 4 is shaky at best and in reality probably negligent: side effects are not being reported. My neighbour’s dog never recovered from it - was told it was a “coincidence”.

I don’t go near any vet that doesn’t offer L2.

The decision to vaccinate for Lepto should be highly individualised based on local risk

I've been vaccinating L4 approx 20-50 dogs per week for about 2 years. Zero side effects in my patients so far.

L4 side effects are well reported and well within normal limits for vaccines: www.gov.uk/government/news/leptospira-vaccination-in-dogs

Unless you have specialist knowledge or evidence to back up your random conspiracy theories?

A relative has a chuandong hound, theres only around 30 in the UK currently. Theyre an ancient Chinese breed that look the same as what they did hundreds of years ago. Shes a great dog, no health problems bar farts that can clear a room!

@MrsAntiSocial

I obviously don’t speak for all dogs, but I initially vaccinating because my dog got seizures after the boosters and after spot on. Prior to that I had given the puppy vaccines and the boosters and used monthly spot on.

I was terrified thinking she had epilepsy (common in collies) but it’s been years and she hasn’t had another seizure since.
Unless epilepsy has big remission periods?
I don’t know, I’m not a vet.

It's much more likely that side effects were related to the spot on and not the vaccine. Collies are known to have an MDR1 gene mutation that means they're susceptible to drugs crossing the blood brain barrier.

This is not a reflection on drug safety - it's a specific known genetic mutation in some breeds

www.laboklin.co.uk/laboklin/showGeneticTest.jsp?testID=8032&testID=8032

On the subject of vaccination can I ask why dogs now need yearly jabs? When I was a child you vaccinated puppies like children - once done that was it. You certainly don't have children jabbed every year.

Why do dogs apparently now need it so often?

Perhaps.
The spot on in question was Advantage, when I googled the key ingredient (Imidacloprid) it didn’t come up as one of the drugs associated with MDR1.

She experienced seizures with both.

From a quick google, seizures are listed as (an admittedly rare) side effect, both of vaccination and spot on.
I don’t feel comfortable continuing their use in my dog.

@NovemberR

On the subject of vaccination can I ask why dogs now need yearly jabs? When I was a child you vaccinated puppies like children - once done that was it. You certainly don't have children jabbed every year.

Why do dogs apparently now need it so often?

They've always needed annual vaccinations. It's your knowledge of vaccines that has changed not disease epidemiology. In fact vaccine regimes have reduced as we have better long term immunity data. In the 80-90s we'd vaccinate against all diseases annually.. now we vaccinate against lepto and parainfluenza annually with other diseases just being vaccinated against every 3 years.

Thank you.

Why don't humans need so many? Sorry to ask..I'm just interested in why I don't need to get my children vaccinated every year but I do the dog. Why don't animal vaccination last like, say, Diphtheria does in humans?

@NovemberR

Thank you.

Why don't humans need so many? Sorry to ask..I'm just interested in why I don't need to get my children vaccinated every year but I do the dog. Why don't animal vaccination last like, say, Diphtheria does in humans?

Different immune responses, different vaccine preparations, different data sets. Different risk factors. As we've acquired longitudinal data for vaccines., The regimes have been revised and time intervals lengthened.

Because almost all babies in the Uk are vaccinated against diphtheria, exposure risks are very small.

A much smaller population of dogs in the Uk are vaccinated against lepto for example. Even fewer now with the L4 vaccine scaremongering as per a previous poster. That means the infection risk is much higher and so to be effective with immunity must be boosted regularly.

Thank you for explanation.🙂