Rainbows Bridge

Sam came to us as a very neglected 5 year old GSD who had been living rough and being fed potato chips and sweeties by the local children. He had a bit of "spirit" shall we say, having been beaten by drunks and drug addicts before hand, but he really did love children. So when a good home straight across the road from us became available, it was heaven sent.

We watched him improve, grow and being adored by his family, I still remember him skipping on the grass as he hadn't seen it before, having lived in the middle of a concrete city!

Back then we always believed the various horror stories relayed by vets about vaccinating yearly so as a rescue, that's what we advocated. However, a tragic turn of events led us to change our way of thinking and set us on the road to campaigning in any way we could against over vaccinating.

Sam was perfectly healthy, not a problem to be found ... until we had his boostered. Roughly 2 weeks later he took ill, very lethargic, loosing weight, having accidents in the house and had a "vague" look about him, very wandery on his legs. He was back and forth at the vets. Vaccination questions were muted along with the same answer, "the booster was not to blame, 100's of dogs are vaccinated every week without any side effects." This went on and we quite literally watched Sam slowly die in front of our eyes, the vets couldn't find anything wrong, the vaccination companies denied all knowledge. We were left to watch this majestic creature grow weaker and weaker until one day it just got to be to much .... he passed on at home surrounded by his family.

We filled in what we call a "pink form" which logs vaccination reactions and is then (allegedly) passed on to the government and manufacturers and we have heard no more about it.

It was about a couple of months after Sam's passing, that news filtered around the area that several dogs of varying breeds and ages had died following a routine boosters. This called for a little "off the record" talk with our own vets about over vaccinating ... a talk that was very enlightening.

It turned out it was true that a spat of dogs had died within a couple of months. The drug companies tried to hush it up but finally had to answer some of the questions being asked, but of course, the replies always cleared the companies themselves putting the onus on the way the vets stored the vaccinations and indeed at one point they admitted that they're might have been a faulty batch although it was impossible to prove as the batch in question had since been used up or recalled, very convenient I'd say.

Sam's "belated" diagnosis was a brain tumour .... although they're wasn't any evidence to back it up. A veterinary friend had said what had actually happened, was his nervous system had been slowly poisoned, leading it to it breaking down completely. This was observed in a few of the dogs that had been autopsied which yet again led to the question "coincidence or not"

Since this happened 6 years ago I have argued and argued this point with many people over the years, including veterinary surgeons and I'm glad to say that the vaccination companies have now came out and admitted that there is no need to booster every year, a 3 year guideline is now in place in Scotland.

Over the years with the help of like minded veterinary and doggie friends, we have found out that once a dog has had it's puppy vaccinations the chances are it won't need further vaccinations for at least 7 years due to a build up of immunity. We are now avidly promoting the use of titre testing, a blood test that can check a dogs immunity. The majority of which come back "high titres, no need to booster at this time" At the moment, this only deals with killed vaccines as there isn't a titre test for Lepto or Parvo as they are live vaccines. Even at that, many vets are sending the company reps back to promote more studies into it, as even the old fashioned conventional vets are beginning to wonder!

Over-vaccinating has also been suspected to be the trigger for many health conditions due to the immune system being compromised through vaccinating. More and more vets are beginning to think this ... which can only be good, as it will eventually put the onus on the drugs companies to prove otherwise.Yes, the wheels of change are turning albeit it slowly but they are turning!

As for Sam, I fell very guilty about our vaccination programme at the time. As his carers were only following the rules of rescue, rules which I helped draw up, rules that will forever haunt me. If this sad story helps another dog along the way, then that can only be a good thing. It won't help Sam .... but might help future Sam's.

Liz