Disease prevention -- what do you use?

I plan on giving Solo one set of distemper and parvo nosodes and then titering him annually after that.

Visa is titered annually. She was titered a couple of weeks ago and I'm excited to recieve the results. I titered her in Sept 05 for parvo and distemper -- parvo was 1:40,096 , but distemper was only 1:4. I suspect it will be much higher now though, as that was only two weeks after I got her -- she is now out with me all the time and comes to work with me, so she is always exposed to dogs shedding the virus. A good distemper level is 1:30, and I think her's will much higher than that.

Don't ever plan on vaccinating -- I'll use nosodes on any pups I get and titering afterwards, and titering on adult dogs.

I can't find anyone here who has even heard of nosodes so I think my pup will be vaccinated for distemper and parvo (seperately) then we'll either do titers every year or vaccinations every 3 or so years.. I haven't decided yet. If I decide to vaccinate Kai and Kae again, it won't be for another three or so years. I think I might stop vaccinating Kaedyn completely though since he's getting older.

Wow, I feel like a loser.. what are all those ratio-like numbers you posted, Jordan?

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Originally Posted by BC_MoM

Wow, I feel like a loser.. what are all those ratio-like numbers you posted, Jordan?

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LOL don't feel like a loser. :p Basically, the higher the number, the better. A titer test can tell you if your dog is immune -- but it can't actually tell you if your dog ISN'T immune.

A high number indicates that the dog is immune (so Visa's 1 in 40,096 is REALLY good, because 1 in 32 is considered immune). A low number indicates not that the dog isn't immune, but that the dog hasn't been recently exposed to the virus. So Visa's 1:4 tells us that she hasn't been recently exposed to distemper --- not that she isn't immune. That is the problem with titers -- you never know if the dog is immune or not when there is a low number. Now if Visa really is immune, her titer levels will rise when she comes in contact with the virus, because her body will remember the disease and produce antibodies (the body can't keep all the antibodies it produces -- if it did, there would literally be no more room for our blood cells).

Alot of people don't understand what their titer levels mean -- they see a low number and automatically think it means their dog has no immunity -- it just isn't true. All it means is that there dog currently has no reason to produce the antibodies needed to protect themselves, because they haven't recently been in contact with the disease. On the other hand, it could really mean that they really aren't immune. So the higher the number the better, as that will actually give you an accurate measure of whether or not the dog is immune.

So titers basically tell you if a specific shot is really neccessary?

I don't do anything. I don't see a point in preventing something that my dog will probably never get anyway. I do vaccinate for rabies though because of the law.

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Originally Posted by BC_MoM

So titers basically tell you if a specific shot is really neccessary?

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No, because a low number doesn't mean they don't have immunity. They can only tell you if your dog has recently been exposed to the disease and that their antibodies are working against it. :)

Basically it tells you which shots aren't nessecary, but not which shots are -- it kinda sucks that way lol. But if I titer Visa annually and her results always come up with a low number, I KNOW it means she isn't immune, because she is around dogs shedding the virus all the time. So if her results come up low for distemper again, I'm going to give her a nosode -- but it's unlikely that they will. She gets out alot more than my friend's sheltie, and his levels are 1:15,000 -- he's never had a shot.

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Originally Posted by binka_nugget

I can't find anyone here who has even heard of nosodes so I think my pup will be vaccinated for distemper and parvo (seperately) then we'll either do titers every year or vaccinations every 3 or so years.. I haven't decided yet. If I decide to vaccinate Kai and Kae again, it won't be for another three or so years. I think I might stop vaccinating Kaedyn completely though since he's getting older.

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Mine were vaccinated via the usual puppy schedule. And revaccinated at 2 yrs just to be absolutely sure. In theory the 1 yr revaccination should have been sufficient, but Parvo and Distemper are not diseases to be triffled with. Their next vaccinations will be either at 4 or 5 yrs of age. Most of the research coming out is saying once every 3 yrs, with my local Vets leaning towards once every 2 yrs.

I will not worry about titering them every year. Even if the titer was moderately protective, a once every 3 yrs re-vaccination to provoke an anamnestic response is a much wiser course than taking a chance of even a mild parvo and distemper infection later on. At a interval of up to 4.5 yrs (they didn't give the breakout by years) one study of previously vaccinated dogs found non-protective titers for Parvo (1<80) in 27% of the dogs, and non-protective titers for Distemper (1<32) in 21%. I could not find any studies where such dogs were challenged with a wild strain of Parvo or Distemper to see the results. One might expect depending on age and vaccination interval a range of results if an unprotected dog was infected: A good anamnestic response and no signs of infection, a mild case of the disease, or a full blown case of the disease. There is no way of knowing until such a study is run. Until then a revaccination every 2-3 yrs seems prudent.


The only time one should consider titering before revaccination is if the dog had an allergic reaction to the vaccination previously. In such cases pre-loading with benedryl should avoid the allergic reaction.

As my dogs age, I will tend to go more towards the direction of more frequent instead of less vaccinations. Titers in older or geriatric dogs are more likely to be lower for a given disease agent. Be it dog or human the immune system tends to be more narrow banding as the animal ages.

I plan on looking into the use of nosodes and might use them in the future. But for now we give the reccomended set of puppy vaccines, DHLPP (3 sets if a puppy, 2 if they are an adult) and then we re-vaccinate every 3 years at the minimum, sometimes it's every 4 or 5 years though. They do get their rabies vaccine every 3 years (every one year if it their first rabies vaccine) only because that is a state law.
I rarely do titers.