I’m a little nutty about vaccines, I’ll say that right up front.
We did a staggering amount of research and in the end concluded that most vaccines are unnecessary, such as leptospirosis, coronavirus, and (in our area at least) Lyme’s disease.
It sounds like you’ve already gotten to the point of minimal vaccination, but I would suggest discussing with your vet the option of using titers to measure current antibodies, rather than vaccinating routinely. We vaccinated the NajaPup with a single-antigen parvo vaccine at sixteen weeks, and a single-antigen distemper two weeks later, with rabies at six months, and haven’t vaccinated him with anything but legally required rabies vaccine since. NajaPop, DVM thinks it’s a little nutty but doesn’t necessarily disagree.
[QUOTE=Dr. Jean Dodds, DVM]
Except where vaccination is required by law, all animals, but especially those dogs or close relatives that previously experienced an adverse reaction to vaccination can have serum antibody titers measured annually instead of revaccination. If adequate titers are found, the animal should not need revaccination until some future date. Rechecking antibody titers can be performed annually, thereafter, or can be offered as an alternative to pet owners who prefer not to follow the conventional practice of annual boosters. Reliable serologic vaccine titering is available from several university and commercial laboratories and the cost is reasonable (Twark and Dodds, 2000; Lappin et al, 2002; Paul et al, 2003; Moore and Glickman, 2004).
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Emphasis added.
Additionally:
[QUOTE=Dr. Jean Dodds, DVM]
Our recent study (Twark and Dodds, 2000), evaluated 1441 dogs for CPV antibody titer and 1379 dogs for CDV antibody titer. Of these, 95.1 % were judged to have adequate CPV titers, and nearly all (97.6 %) had adequate CDV titers. Vaccine histories were available for 444 dogs (CPV) and 433 dogs (CDV). Only 43 dogs had been vaccinated within the previous year, with the majority of dogs (268 or 60%) having received a booster vaccination 1-2 years beforehand. On the basis of our data, we concluded that annual revaccination is unnecessary. Similar findings and conclusions have been published recently for dogs in New Zealand (Kyle et al, 2002), and cats (Scott and Geissinger, 1999; Lappin et al, 2002). Comprehensive studies of the duration of serologic response to five viral vaccine antigens in dogs and three viral vaccine antigens in cats were recently published by researchers at Pfizer Animal Health ( Mouzin et al, 2004).
When an adequate immune memory has already been established, there is little reason to introduce unnecessary antigen, adjuvant, and preservatives by administering booster vaccines. By titering annually, one can assess whether a given animal’s humoral immune response has fallen below levels of adequate immune memory. In that event, an appropriate vaccine booster can be administered.
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Good luck!
