ASK THE VET: Skimping on vaccines could prove fatal
Sometimes, especially after a quick and uneventful physical exam and vaccination appointment with a young, healthy animal, I can almost hear some owners thinking, “I paid sixty bucks for that? I could have told you my pet was fine and saved the wrestling match and lacerations trying to get the cat into the carrier to get here if I just got the vaccines that are so easily available and inexpensive online or at the feed store and gave them myself.”
Well, this is the story of some clients of mine that may shed some light on the feed store vaccine issue.
I want to be clear that these clients are very dear to me and they have always done right by their animals, so we are not talking about lazy, cheap, irresponsible people who just don’t care. The economy is tough right now and the cats were young and healthy, so they made the judgment call to save some money for the family and use vaccines from a feed store.
Several months ago the owner found the cats surrounding a dead bat. She did the responsible thing and notified the Humane Society, which notified the local health department, which took the remains of the bat for rabies testing. Unfortunately, the cats had eaten the bat’s brain, which is the only tissue that can be used for testing, so it was impossible to tell whether the bat had died of rabies. So, the cats may or may not have been exposed to rabies, and the rabies vaccine the owner gave may or may not have been protective.
The health department does not acknowledge rabies vaccines unless given by a veterinarian; feed store vaccines don’t count. Cats with documented rabies vaccines would have needed to be quarantined at the owner’s home for 10 days; cats with no documented rabies vaccine must be quarantined for 90 days in a certified medical facility, or be immediately euthanized.
We charge about $35 per day for hospitalization in our isolation ward. Multiply that by 90 days for three cats and the cost would be $6,300. I would have been willing to offer a reduced rate to save these cats, but our isolation ward is quite small and it was physically impossible to house the cats there and also care for other patients that needed treatment in the isolation ward.
The potential for rabies also meant that having the cats in my hospital put our other patients, my staff and me at risk. So, for practical rather than financial reasons, we could not accept the cats for the duration of the quarantine. All three cats were euthanized.
Although it was sad to lose these cats to nothing but a potential exposure to rabies, the people at the health department are not the bad guys. Once a person develops signs of rabies, the fatality rate is 100 percent. No amount of risk of exposure to rabies should acceptable to a family, especially one with small children.
The reason feed store vaccines are not accepted is that there is no real way to know whether the owner stored, reconstituted and administered the vaccine appropriately. Perhaps, on a hot July day, the feed store got a shipment of vaccines that sat on the loading dock in 100-degree heat for eight hours before being taken inside. It would have looked just fine, but been about as effective as saline.
I have seen enough feed store vaccines fail to protect against parvo to know that the same rate of failure could be true for rabies.
Although the best care for any pet is to have them seen by a veterinarian for an appointment that also includes a physical exam, there are compromises available. Hamlett Spay/Neuter clinic gives low-cost vaccinations here in town, and there are frequent vaccine clinics given by various organizations that offer inexpensive vaccines.
These services are usually provided without an exam, but the rabies vaccines will be considered official and documented, so you and your pet will be better protected.
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Anne Pierce is a Colorado Springs veterinarian and co-owner of High Plains Veterinary Hospital, a Colorado Springs small-animal clinic. Reach her at petdocs@highplainsvet.com.
