I had an interesting discussion yesterday about the “antimicrobial pipeline” as part of the Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance. When we talk about the antimicrobial pipeline, we’re referring to the dwindling number of new antimicrobial drugs that are currently in development. Antimicrobial research and development (R&D) has fallen by the wayside over the
Miscellaneous
At What Age Should We Vaccinate Puppies and Kittens Against Rabies?
(TL:DR… check out the TikTok version at the bottom)
When I was a newly graduated veterinarian in general practice, I gave puppies and kittens their first rabies vaccine at 16 weeks of age. That was the standard at the clinic and a common practice elsewhere. Now, if I ask audiences of veterinarians when they vaccinated…
Changes to Ontario Rabies Rules
There’s nothing too earth-shattering here, but a few useful changes pertaining to rabies regulations are coming to Ontario as of July 1, 2023.
- Medical officers of health (MOHs) will have the ability to require rabies testing of animals that have died or are euthanized during their 10 day observation period after they’ve bitten someone.
Mixing Vaccines in Dogs
While I get lots of interesting infectious disease questions every day, most aren’t new.

This one was.
To paraphrase, the question was basically “If we want to minimize the number of injections when vaccinating a dog, can we mix rabies and core (e.g. distemper, parvovirus, adenovirus) vaccines in the same syringe, using rabies vaccine…
Rabies Recap, US 2021
As per usual, the annual US rabies state-of-the-union has been published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (Ma et al. 2023). It’s the same general information every year, but always a good reminder of the ongoing challenges with rabies here in North America.
Here are some highlights from the animal-related…
Canine Flu Vaccine Shortage Issues
We’ve been dealing with a major shortage of canine influenza vaccine for a while. That’s caused a few different hassles, some related to disease and others related to vaccination requirements.
A quick recap: There are a couple of different strains of dog-adpated flu internationally, but currently we’re really just worried about H3N2. This strain is…
Antimicrobial Resistance, Animals and a Pandemic Instrument
Being asked to coordinate a paper for the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics wasn’t on my academic bingo card for the year, but like a lot of things in recent years, I’ve come to expect the unexpected. The paper in question is part of a special edition entitled Addressing Antimicrobial Resistance through the Proposed …
Do We Need “Animal Only” Antibiotics?
The antibiotic development pipeline is drying up. More companies are abandoning the area because antibiotics are expensive to develop and license, but they are low profit drugs that we try to use as little as possible.

This is a big issue for human medicine, and was the focus of a lot of discussion at this…
Need 2 Know: Rabies in Pets video
Canada has a long-standing requirement for rabies vaccination of most categories of dogs and cats being imported from countries not considered free of non-bat rabies. While this requirement helps protect dogs and cats from rabies infection should they be exposed to endemic wildlife rabies that is present in Canada, it does little to prevent rabies…
Why Is the Approach to Rabies Titres in Humans Different Than in Pets?
We have different approaches to rabies in dogs and cats versus humans. The ultimate goal is still the same: preventing this almost invariably fatal infection. However, between humans and animals there are differences in who we target for vaccination, frequency of vaccination, utility of rabies antibody titres, and how we respond to potential rabies exposures,…