Dog Vaccine

Serum is the liquid part of the blood of an dog. There are several different types of serum, depending on their source. Convalescent serum comes from the blood of an dog just recovered from a disease.Immune scrum is that which has been produced from an dog im-mune to the disease in question. Hyperimmune serum is made from dog that have been hyper immunized against the disease, that is, by subjecting an already immune dog to massive doses of the virus. All these types are in use in veterinary medicine.

Since it is made from the blood of recovered dog, serum is full of antibodies. When we inject it we simply add these antibodies againstthe disease to the blood of the dog we want to protect or try to cure.This addition does not in any way cause the body to produce moreantibodies, and after a few days they are lost and the body is no longerprotected. When serum is used as protection against disease it must begiven repeatedly at not more than two-week intervals.

Vaccines are biologics for preventive inoculation. They may be bac-terial or virus and induce the body to produce antibodies against thedisease-producing agents.

Vaccine may consist of several different materials. It may be bacteria,live or dead; virus, live, dead, or attenuated. If we are vaccinating against a bacterial disease, we sometimes use live bacteria of somestrain that does not produce a disease of much intensity. This is doneto vaccinate against undulant fever. The dog is given the real dis-ease, but of a strain that has proved from long study to produce mildsymptoms. The dog actually becomes sick, recovers, and is hence-forth immune. Autogenous vaccine is made from cultures of the veryorganism affecting an dog and then used against the disease. Dead bacteria in suspension form a common type of vaccine which isused for several diseases of pets - always as a preventive. Sometimesseveral species of bacteria are mixed in one vaccine in order to immu-nize our pets at one time against all the diseases these bacteria cause.Vaccines may be of live virus, so the dog actually is given thedisease. Attenuated virus vaccines are those that have been either atten-uated (weakened) by passage through a different species, grown in cells,or by chemicals. Everybody has heard how smallpox if given to a calfproduces cowpox, and how if we are given that disease it immunizes us against cowpox and small pox. When attenuated vaccine is injectedunder the skin of dogs it is absorbed into the bloodstream and the dog'sbody goes to work building up immunity by destroying the attenuatedor dead virus by stimulating the production of antibodies. The dog is henceforth immune, as though it had actually had the disease. Some individuals may lose immunity in a year or so.

Although it is illegal to ship distemper vaccine into many states tononveterinarians, the law is unenforceable as far as mail-order compa-nies are concerned. A word of warning if you contemplate vaccinating your own dog. We have known litters of puppies to die of distemperafter such products have been used. The savings are not worth thechance of obtaining had vaccine.

An intramuscular rabies vaccination in an adult dog lasts for overthree years, and other vaccinations last for varying lengths of time. In the early days of vaccines it was thought that in order to establish ahigh antibody content of the blood and cells (titer) it was necessary togive several small doses of vaccine. Newer research indicates that bestresults may be attained by the injection of one large jarring dose whichshocks the body into building up huge antibody content. Moreover, thepractice of giving the same amount of vaccine to all dog regardless of size is slowly being replaced by the grading of the dose to the size of the dog. Surely it has been wrong to give the same dose to a Pomeranian as to a St. Bernard, about thirty times as large, yet for years thishas been the accepted procedure with the result that so many dogs oflarge breeds may not have been properly protected.