Immunisation question

I worked at a vet clinic last year (small animal) the vast majority of appointments were vaccinations, I would say at least 3/4 of appointments. I'm not sure it is actually 80% of their revenue but it would be very high with most of the rest of the money coming from selling prescription diets, every other animal out of the consult room went home with a prescription diet of some sort, cos they were too fat, too skinny, too active, too lathargic, itchy, urine problem, whatever, seems to be a prescription diet for everything.

So an average day was full of vaccinations, dog/cat neuter and spays and selling prescription diets. In comparison everything else that happened was rather small, even if individually those bills are higher.

We have a bit of a menagerie so here goes what we do and dont.

Dogs get vax when puppies (mainly for parvo) nothing after a year, dont need the kennel cough one as they dont go out.

Cats Get 2 when they are kittens mainly for cat flu and then none.

Horses get strangles and tetanus

Rabbits i used to get done against calici but then 2 of mine died from calici so wasnt worth it. Have one now that is not vax and hes going strong.

And for the main man, he has been vaccinated, although we are coming up to the 15months ones and im still deciding

JessDub wrote: Please, I'm not wanting to start a bun fight, but I'm genuinely curious... To the parents who choose not to vaccinate your children, do you vaccinate your dogs?

We don't have dogs but we have cats and nope we don't vaccinate them or our baby.

Edited to add...actually our cat was vaccinated about 12 years ago for flu I think but we haven't 'updated' her shots for donkeys years now. When I had horses I vaccinated them against tetnus when they had an injury that warranted it...just as I plan to do with my daughter and I do for myself. It's the 'blanket vaccination in case something dire happens' that we don't do

Edited by Emmecat

We vax the kid(s) and the animals. Cats have normal cat shots plus cat aids shots, dogs have normal dog shots. Have also seen a dog die of parvo and it's not nice! The only think that my family will not be getting is the new flu shot. Other than that, every other one is done.

*shame* We're a doggy family and I didn't know cats (and horses!) were vaccinated too. Makes sense though.

Little_Red wrote: HUNTD wrote: Dogs get vax when puppies (mainly for parvo) nothing after a year, dont need the kennel cough one as they dont go out. Sorry a bit off topic but what do you mean by "they don't go out"? We vaccinate our cat and our two dogs blindly. I haven't done any research into it at all so this thread is really interesting, especially because I am taking my cat to get his annual vax this week!

our dogs dont go to kennels and shows where they have to be vaccinated against kennel cough.

Same here kiwi2, C will need measles vax to attend school here in Singapore, if we stay that long, and they don't do the MMR separately so therefore he needs to have up to date MMR jabs to go to school.

Interesting topic though, we don't have pets at the mo but have always vaxed our family cats and dogs in the past (back in NZ).

Sorry should have said they dont leave the farm then

NatsCats wrote: Interesting topic for sure..what do people do with their pets (cats) when they go away?

Call a neighbour/friend/housesitter/Pet Angel to mind them