Olivia Borlovan
I have thus far avoided all vaccines for my puppy. Unfortunately, even a holistic vet in my area seemed to highly recommend I get her vaccinated for parvo..I understand it is a dangerous virus, but after reading stories online about puppies contracting the virus from the vaccine... I'd like to avoid it if possible, especially considering long-term effects of vaccines in general.
My puppy was 3 weeks old when I found her and had been abandoned by the mother dog so I know she didn't get the level of antibodies from the mother's milk that most puppies would have. This makes me even more hesitant about getting her vaccinated. Wouldn't she be more susceptible if encountering the weakened form of the virus than other puppies? She nearly died from eating Pup-peroni puppy treats so I'm extremely paranoid now about what she is given and the generally "common health procedures." Back when first researching vaccines, I had read that a holistic vet had taken a group of puppies at the age of 12 weeks to an area know to have raccoons with distemper and a dog park where there might be the parvo virus, let them sniff around for 5 minutes, loaded them up in the car and left, then repeated a week or so later. A titer test was done on the puppies and they had built up an immunity to both distemper and parvo without showing any signs of sickness.
Hopeful that this would work for my puppy, I've taken her unvaccinated little self to the dog park many, many times. I suppose the only way I'll know for sure if it worked is to pay for a titer test.. but part of me worries "what if her immunity levels show very low and the vet pushes the idea of getting her vaccinated?" She hasn't had any of her puppy shots, and I wish to avoid all of them, safely. I've heard some people who have lost their dogs to vaccination decided not to vaccinate their dogs whatsoever and took them around highly populated dog areas all the time without any issues. What are your thoughts on this approach. Is it safe? I would perhaps opt for nosodes if there were a holistic vet near me who did that as an alternative to vaccines; but nearly all vets here are conventional.