In an effort to provide the best protection for you and your dog, and to provide vaccines only as often as necessary, we are switching our canine patients here at Oromocto Veterinary Hospital to a 3 year rabies vaccine protocol. What this means for you and your pet is that we will continue to see you annually for your bordetella (kennel cough) and distemper (parvo, upper respiratory viruses, and leptospirosis) vaccines, as well as performing a thorough physical exam. The only change will be in the frequency of the rabies vaccination for dogs.

For new puppies, and dogs who have never had rabies vaccines, the procedure is as follows: They will receive a 1 year vaccine this year, and next year will get a booster that is good for 3 years. Dogs who have been vaccinated previously for rabies will get a booster this year that is good for 3 years. This booster is needed since the vaccine that we have previously used only offers protection for only one year.

For cats, we will continue to use an annual distemper vaccine (with or without feline leukemia, depending on whether your cat goes outside or not), as well as an annual rabies vaccine. The reason that cats are continuing to receive their rabies vaccine yearly is that in rare feline patients, they may develop a tumor (called a vaccine-associated sarcoma) at the site of injection of their vaccines. While this is a possible complication with any vaccine, we know that the three year rabies vaccine may be slightly more likely to cause this than the one year vaccine. For this reason, it is safer for us to give one vaccine every year for three years instead of the more reactive single vaccine every three years.

This change in our canine vaccination protocol should enable us to offer just as much protection, but will result in fewer vaccines each year for your dog; what it doesn't change is the need to visit us each year for the remainder of the vaccinations and a good check-up. For cats, everything remains as is, and they should come see us annually for all of their vaccinations as well as a thorough physical exam. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to ask any of the helpful staff here at the Oromocto Veterinary Hospital.