Frustrated About Vaccines

I believe that vaccines are not the miracle they are proffessed to be. The research done on vaccines, the scientific reports, overwhelming numbers of anecdotal reports, these make me suspicious of the need for vaccination, and especially re-vaccination.

Batman suffers from some of the classic signs of vaccinosis, including extreme sensitivity and weakness in the hind end. I am beginning to suspect that Tweed-revaccinated recently at the shelter-is showing signs as well, but in his case it is fearfulness. Shawn is out of date on his rabies shot, and so if we picked him up, we’d have to get him revaccinated for him to be “legal” again.

This prompted me to find out once and for all exactly what the legal stand on vaccinations and titers was in Alaska. I’ve heard of titers being done in place of revaccination, with letters from vets stating that the animal meets or exceeds the levels of immunity required by law. From what I gather, this is usually only done with sick or old animals or with vets who agree that revaccination is detrimental.

The laws, on the other hand, are not so flexible. According to the National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians, who annually review and recommend proceedures for rabies prevention and control in animals, titers and letters are simply not a legal replacement for vaccines in any of the 50 states. The official stance is that even though antibodies may be present, this does not confer immunity. “Rabies virus antibody titers are indicative of a response to vaccine or infection. Titers do not directly correlate with protection because other immunologic factors also play a role in preventing rabies, and the ability to measure and interpret those other factors are not well developed. Therefore, evidence of circulating rabies virus antibodies should not be used as a substitute for current vaccination in managing rabies exposures or determining the need for booster vaccinations in animals.”

Again, from what I can tell, they’re interpreting things very oddly. In an article from Christie Keith (not a vet, and she is simply reporting information from elsewhere) she states:

“A titer test does not and cannot measure immunity, because immunity to specific viruses is reliant not on antibodies, but on memory cells, which we have no way to measure. Memory cells are what prompt the immune system to create antibodies and dispatch them to an infection caused by the virus it “remembers.” Memory cells don’t need “reminders” in the form of re-vaccination to keep producing antibodies. (Science, 1999; “Immune system’s memory does not need reminders.”) If the animal recently encountered the virus, their level of antibody might be quite high, but that doesn’t mean they are more immune than an animal with a lower titer. “

From the same article:

“…other uses for titer tests in my opinion are to check immunization status on dogs with an unknown history, to provide documentation for legal purposes such as travel, or licensing in areas that accept rabies titers in lieu of rabies vaccination, to satisfy curiosity, or to provide peace of mind for pet owners.”

I looked up the Alaska state law on animals that are off of the legal vaccination schedule, and it’s a pretty big risk to not have your animals vaccinated. Any animal that is not vaccinated for rabies is subject to seizure and immediate vaccination or euthanization. Any animal that is suspected of being infected with rabies and/or has bitten someone and is not vaccinated is usually euthanized immediately for testing, no observation period. Ouch.

I’ve asked for advice from others who are on a reduced vaccination schedule, and the answers range from “vaccinate if you’re not willing to take the risk” to “falsify the records.” I don’t like the helplessness implied with the first answer, and I might consider the second out of desperation, if the records were paper rather than metal tags. It all smacks of subversity.

Even though the system seems ironbound, change is creeping. People are pushing for reduced vaccine schedules. Some areas have successfully implemented 3 year rabies rather than yearly rabies. Some areas are pushing titers as a legal substitute, but the national recommendations are dismissive. Articles like this one http://www.news.wisc.edu/8413 help, but aren’t enough. I am considering donating to http://www.rabieschallengefund.org/. They are funding a study to determine the real length of immunity from vaccines.

What will I do in the meantime? Refuse all vaccines but rabies, and learn how to treat homeopathically. It’s the best path I can choose right now. Walking the line between risks is a hard choice.

Shawn the Dog

There is a 2 year old Border Collie/Aussie boy named Shawn that I went to go see recently. I’ve deeply considered the BC or not to BC question, and I have several more months to make up my mind. This dog has a good home, so there’s no hurry. We’ve got day-visits planned to see what he thinks about our house and our routines, and there’s no pressure either way for us to take him.

First, some background:

Shawn was born and raised as an outdoor dog on a rescue farm. He’s well-mannered inside, and is crate trained. Not much formal training, but he’s very intuitive about what is being asked, and offers behaviors until he gets some sign that he’s done right. Initially clueless about taking treats: he had to watch the other dogs and has caught on quickly (no surprise there). Good with visiting kids. Extremely gentle mouth. Raised around all manner of poultry, rabbits, llamas, horses, sheep, goats, cats, and other dogs. He does not chase the free-roaming poultry or cats, is easygoing and submissive with the other dogs, is polite around the sheep pen, and ignores everything else. His full BC father works elsewhere, and his Aussie/BC mother works the sheep on the farm. He’s turned on to sheep but he knows he is not allowed in with the sheep and calmly watches from the sidelines as his mother works.

His mother is a wild whirlwind of crazy energy, but both he and his brother are quiet and friendly. His brother Duncan is outgoing and shameless in soliciting with his Frisbee. Shawn is more reserved and extremely patient, but I’ve seen some beautiful displays of people-joy from him.

I’ve gone to visit several times, but it’s hard to get a fix on his personality. He’s very unobtrusive and mild-mannered. The other dogs push him aside to get to people, so he seems to have resigned himself to the background. He has not had a lot of cuddle time, but he went from standoffish and thinking he’d done something wrong when I was grooming and petting him, to butting his head under my arm and snuggling close whenever I am on the ground. The busy lady who owns the farm wants him to go to a home where he gets more interaction: the farm dogs live good, doggy lives, but they all seem starved for human contact. All in all he seems like he would benefit to having his own family.

I’m a little worried about taking him out of his country setting. Will he adapt to the noisy neighborhood? Being the only dog? Will he become attached to me? Are we really a good home for him?
Lot’s of questions. He’s a beautiful dog, and I’ve never seen a dog with such poise and politeness with such little training.

Well, no hurry. None at all.

The New Cat Shuffle

Pat and I agreed that we needed to bring a new cat into the house fairly quickly so that Batman did not get too territorial about having the house all to himself. We agreed that we would probably bring a new cat home around mid-week.  I had gone out with Boo on my own, and after she had gone, I needed to do something to calm myself. I ended up deciding to do the first round of visits to the large cat colony to see which cats caught my eye. It did not open until three, and my errands only took me through two o’clock, so I stopped by a tiny shelter way across town that I used to volunteer at before my schedule changed and we moved. The quality of care had gone way up in the past two years, and the cats were all well-cared for. I visited with the cats for a while and spoke about putting Boo down with some of the staff, and just shed some stress. None of the cats were really speaking to me, and I was on my way out when the volunteer said, “Oh, I forgot about Lucky, he’s up in the basket on the wall. They should have named him Love Bug.”

I walked over and peered in to an amorphous stripe-and-white blob. I stoked the fur once, and the mass rolled over onto its back, revealing a pink nose and white paws, which pulled my hand in so that he could rub his face on me and have me rub his belly. He was soft like a rabbit. I needed to pull him out of the basket to take a look at him, and as is the way with cats, he had wedged himself into a very small space. It was like pulling handkerchiefs from a magician’s sleeve, he just kept coming and coming, and eventually I had an armful of limp, contented cat. I sat down and he ragdolled onto my lap. I had to set him on his feet before I could entice him to stand up and walk around so I could get a look at him. He’s way bigger than Batman, very clean, amenable to fingers in his ears and mouth, no complaints when handling his paws or palpitating his innards, no sensitive spots on his skin, not overweight, interested in toys, good manners, very gentlemanly. A very nice cat all around. He clicked, and I decided to go ahead and fill out an application. They said since it was close to close of business, they’d check references on Monday and I’d be able to bring him home on Tuesday if everything checked out. Tuesday sounded good, I’d be able to talk it over with Pat in the meantime. They called that same evening, saying I could pick him up on Monday. Well. Serendipity.

On that end, at least. It remained to be seen if he and Batman would get along. I am familiar with the integration process, so I had a room all set aside for the newcomer, and when I brought him home Monday afternoon, Batman greeted us at the door, relaxed and curious. Neither one was hostile, merely curious, and I decided to set the crate down to let them get a sniff. Nose to nose sniffs were exchanged, and I let the new cat out. They said he hid at the shelter for the first two weeks, so I expected him to go to ground. He walked around the whole house before I cloistered him, me, and Batman in the cat room. He hid in my arms as I laid on the floor for about 15 minutes. Then he saw a spider, stalked and ate it, and seemed much more at ease. Good on him! We all hung out for around a half hour, then I left him alone in the room for a few hours, visiting every now and then. After a while, I opened the door and let him explore the house. He slunk around the bottom floor, laid down on every stair, scoped out the kitchen, and then settled down contentedly on the bed in our temporary bedroom/livingroom. Batman alternated tailing the new cat around with his nose up his butt and giving me looks that said: “Are you serious?!”

When Patrick came home, he heartily approved of the new addition. I said I had been ruminating on names, and that the cat was very definitely a country gentleman, a nice fellow, and needed a suitable name that reflected this. I put forth “Tweed” and  Patrick said it was a good cat name. That it “suited” him. Hehe.

So far there’s only been a few bouts of half-hearted fisticuffs, with Tweed mostly ignoring Batman and Batman ranging from wary to pouncing and cleaning the tip of Tweed’s tail. They’re cut from the same cloth, these two. They’re both currently sacked out, bellies up on the bed. They’re not comfortable enough to groom one another for real yet, but I think they will be buddies.

Responsibility for Animals

Since before the wedding we’ve been struggling with whether or not to put our little cat, Boomerang, to sleep. We got her and Batman on December 31st 2006, and she was not quite a year and a half old. We think she had some major genetic damage or vaccinosis, because she was generally nervous and anxious, we were never able to keep weight on her, and by three, she was a wreck, with odd eye problems, teeth basically disintegrating out of her head and opening up abscesses in her mouth, and all through this there was nothing “medically” wrong with her. Even though we knew she was in pain, she was still living a full, normal life. She ate with enthusiasm, played hard, was very active around the house, was curious and snuggly. I have been looking into homeopathy as a possible way to work through this.

The last couple of days of last week it was like someone took our cat away and replaced it with a completely different cat. She followed us around and just wanted to be held, she spent long hours crouched alone in the middle of the kitchen floor, we would leave the house and she would not have moved by the time we got back, she stopped grooming, she stopped eating without major coaxing, and the big one: she would watch but not chase her toys–for a cat who lived for her toys, this development beyond any other–we knew it was time.

I took her in on Saturday, and cried over her and almost took her home. There were times when she was her old self, and through it all she never stopped being a loving cat. I could struggle through feedings, I could keep her brushed and clean…but I could not in good conscience leave her in pain and watch her world become more scary and confusing for her. So she is gone, and the tears are relieving. Boo being sick was tied in with all the stress before the wedding, and also with Patrick’s MRSA scare after the honeymoon and wondering if I was going to be a widow. Not lying awake wondering how much pain she was in, and whether it was time or not… those things have been lifted from me, and I can thank her for the wonderful life we had together.

Recently, I read an article about the Buddhist belief that the suffering of an animal is cleansing for it, and that humans should neither interfere with that process nor incur that sort of debt upon themselves. If that is the correct path, I cannot currently walk that road. This whole ordeal has been a learning process for me. There are things I would do differently with hindsight, but there are many, many decisions I have made that have been good ones, and the lesson learned is to have faith in my intuitions.

One of the decisions I am struggling to make peace with is my decision to feed a raw, species appropriate diet. Of course, for Boo, I have wondered all along if the diet was contributing to her unbalance. But her anxiety lessened considerably, her coat was beautiful, her intact teeth were sparkling, and she had an unlimited amount of energy until the very end. In desperation, I had gone out and gotten some high-fat and protein kitten food to try to entice her to eat. Her body’s reaction to it was violent and smelly, and though she ate some, she wanted the meat more.

Batman has been a kibble hound since it’s been in the house. He has picked his way through the cabinetry to get to it, opened drawers, chewed through bags, and tries to paw and drag and beg. I gave him a few to get him to leave Boo alone, but it has only served to make him beg for food at all hours, and to not eat well at mealtime.

When we first brought him home, he had been used to being a free-fed fat cat. He was overweight with low muscle tone and all the energy of a loaf of bread. His fur was dry and prone to mats. His teeth were very scaled with orangey green gunk. They had come home from a 300 cat colony shelter that was free-fed by necessity. Batman was food obsessive, did not play, and was not very curious. The introduction of an active companion, better quality kibble (haha) and regular grooming only went so far. When we introduced the raw food it only took a few tries before he was crunching and chewing with abandon. When the kibble went away, he did not seem to miss it. Food went down twice a day, was finished quickly, and there was no begging, no cries for food, no pacing, nothing. His fur turned plush and glassy, his teeth lost the scaling and his breath is sweet. Best of all, he lost weight, he is active and playful and except for a blocked tear duct and a lifelong cat virus from being in the shelter he is extremely healthy. On top of all of this, the litter box is not smelly, something I take for granted until I am around conventionally fed cats.