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Saturday 31 January 2009

Preparing for the shots

I am equally worried about vaccination reaction and my dogs catching deadly diseases and was wondering what protocols other breeders are using these days.
I am about to have a litter and was wondering if there is anything I can do to help my pups cope with their first vaccines.
Name and address supplied

Cavalier breeder Bill Knight contributed this post to our other blog about Beardie Taiga's death from a suspected vaccine reaction (Click here to read the full post):
"We used to find that after their first vaccination our puppies would be very sleepy, off their food, often with an upset tum and with a painful lump at the site of the vaccination. About 14 years ago we changed our regime and we now don't have any of these problems. We now use Dog Combination 30c from Ainsworths in London when the pups are two and half weeks old. It contains homeopathic potencies of Hepatitis, Leptospitosis, Hard pad and distemper, Parvo virus and Kennel cough and it must be crushed - you can't touch it and it must be given without food. You need to ask for a leaflet that tells you how much to give and when. The dogs then get their traditional vaccine at eight weeks and since we've started using the Ainsworth Dog Combination we've not had any problems with reactions. We always insist on Nobivac and the other thing we do is keep all our pups until they are 10 weeks so they don't have any stress. There are four things we do that might otherwise be traumatic - the pups are jabbed, tattooed, chipped and litter screened before going to their new homes so we like to keep them for that extra two weeks to make this as untraumatic as possible. If anyone wants to know more I'd be happy to explain further. I'd just like to say how very sad I am about Taiga and send Lorraine all my sympathy."

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