RE: Vaccinations

steph fursland — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 15:11:36 GMT

There was a really good webinar (I think by ISFM?) about vaccination in cats. Their thinking was primary course, booster at 1 year old, then every three years (and it should never be necessary to do a restart of the course - if they have lapsed then a booster is enough). Unfortunately that is contradictory to the manufacturers instructions for most vaccines, and the requirements for catteries, so we give Leucofeligen yearly as our policy, but if owners (especially of old cats, never going to a cattery, not going out much etc) don't want to vaccinate every year then I tend to say that although we can't guarantee immunity, it's thought to be pretty likely that it lasts longer than 12 months.

Dogs - lepto yearly, DHP every other, kennel cough optional. CVC (a company who do allergy testing/hyposens vaccines) are apparently bringing out cheap in house antibody testing, to assess if the dog is immune or needs vaccinating any given year - we aren't using it yet but something we might consider as a practice.