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One of my friends is the wife of a veterinarian. That makes her a useful resource whenever I have questions about my pets’ health. Today we got on the topic of immunizations, and she mentioned one of which I’d never heard: Lyme disease.
My friend said that at her husband’s veterinary practice it was standard to immunize against Lyme disease once a year. I was surprised, mostly because I’d never even heard of a vaccine for the disease before, and now I learn that some places administer it yearly.
I wanted to know more, so I began researching as soon as I got home. As it turns out, the Lyme vaccine is controversial. I’m not surprised; the process of vaccination is a bit risky, injecting living creatures with small doses of the disease we want to prevent, so any new immunization is going to cause a lot of buzz and questions until its long term effects can be studied.
That’s the main reason why the immunization is controversial: it hasn’t been around long enough for any possible long-term complications to arise, and in isolated incidents dogs have become sick from it. However, in those rare cases the dogs already had Lyme disease that had gone unnoticed, and apparently the vaccine does not react well if the dog already has the disease.
The bottom line seems to be that the vaccine isn’t worth the expense and potential risk unless the dog is at even greater risk from getting Lyme disease. It’s not required, like rabies, or even strongly recommended, like distemper. In fact, most vets don’t even endorse or administer the vaccine unless patients live in a tick-endemic area.
Tick-endemic areas are locations that are rife with ticks, where anyone going through the little bloodsuckers’ common breeding grounds like tall grassy fields and denser woods, are likely to pick up not one but multiple ticks.
Thankfully, there’s an easy way to get an idea if you live in an endemic area or not. The American Lyme Disease Foundation has a map of the United States on their website wherein spots are shaded to varying degrees depending on the proliferation of ticks in the location. Check it out for your first clue as to whether or not you live in an abundant area.
Even if you live in a tick-endemic area, however, don’t immediately run out to immunize your dog. Consider the following: do you use other forms of tick prevention with your pet? Does it frequently go into areas where it will likely pick up ticks? Do you often find ticks on your pet? If you find them, are the insects alive or dead?
Only in uncommon cases does the Lyme disease vaccine seem to be necessary. Chances are if you already use tick prevention on your dog, that’s doing the job well enough. Dogs won’t necessarily contract the disease even if they’re bitten by a tick, so really the vaccine only seems to be needed if a dog is covered in and being bitten by ticks all of the time.
Related Articles:
How Often to Immunize Dogs and Cats
Pet First Aid: Tick-Borne Diseases
Skunk: A Most Odious Encounter
*(This image by Laertes is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
