Will Falconer, DVM Moderator
Sue, vaccination has long been my #1 predictor of chronic disease in pets. The tricky part is, it's often delayed: a month post-vaccination is a common interval, and then The Itch or Funky Ears or worse starts to show.
I still see its greatest value in 3rd world countries where rabies accounts for 50-60K deaths annually (Africa and India, mostly). Good data that when volunteers vaccinate a large percentage of owned or stray dogs (the chief carrier there), the death rate and bite incidence drops significantly.