Recently, the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) designated leptospirosis vaccination to be a “core” vaccination in dogs. That means it’s recommended for all dogs. I’ve had a lot of veterinarians asking questions about this, since traditionally leptospirosis vaccination has been positioned as “optional” based on an individual dog’s risk of exposure.
I’ve considered this
Our latest WormsAndGermsPod episode is a chat with Andy Gibson and Ian Battersby about canine rabies and, in particular, the work of Mission Rabies to help achieve the goal of zero canine-mediated rabies deaths by 2030.
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A tragic case of rabies in a person in Ontario was reported earlier this month. Very few details about the case have been released publicly, other than the person was exposed to a bat in Ontario and became progressively ill, later being admitted to hospital with clinical signs of encephalitis and symptoms consistent with rabies.
When an unvaccinated person is exposed to rabies, they typically receive post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) consisting of a dose of anti-rabies antibodies and four (4) rabies vaccines over the course of two weeks. In dogs and cats, it’s a different story. We don’t use formal PEP protocols in pets in most regions.
Some dogs cross the border between the US and Canada because the closest veterinary clinic (or closest referral/specialty clinic) is in the other country. In the past, that hasn’t usually been an issue because of the ease of dog movement between Canada and the US. That’s going to change very soon due to new dog
The US has been tinkering (for the good) with their canine importation rules for the past few years, primarily in response to concerns about importing rabid dogs. The US had just announces a new set of rules for importing dogs, that come into effect August 1, 2024. The new rules aim to provide more assurance
When we talk about vaccines of dogs*, we tend to split them into “core” and “non-core” vaccines.
(*The same applies to cats. I use dogs by default for posts like this, which sometimes gets me an earful, but I’m not actually ignoring cats.)
Core vaccines are those that every animal should
As awareness of canine infectious respiratory disease complex (CIRDC, formerly known as “kennel cough”) has spiked recently, there are more discussions happening about respiratory vaccines in dogs. A large number of different bacteria and viruses play a role in CIRDC. We can vaccinate against a few of them including parainfluenza virus (the most commonly
This may be my last update on this topic in the short term (unless things change, of course).
The good news:
In case anyone would like a break from all the canine infectious respiratory disease (CIRDC) posts, take a moment to gawk in disbelief (as I did initially) at this human-created debacle:
Skunk purchased from Michigan breeder tests positive for rabies.
How many things are wrong with this, just based on the headline? Ugh.
For
