My dogs are kibble fed (Nature's recipie but I will soon probably switch to Natural Balance or Life's Abundance.rents wont let me feed raw)
I'm looking for a vet in Sacramento, CA that won't push the vaccination thing or try and influence me to change food. One that will also take chinchillas.
Answers:
I have sugar gliders and cats and am the same way - I am comfortable with the diet I have them all on and do not believe in over vaccinating. It's REALLY hard to find a vet that will see exotics like sugar gliders and chinchillas in my area so I've had to really dig and am still searching. Mainly, see if you can get in to see the vet and have a one on one with out an actual exam of your pets. Get a feel for him/her and see how your comfort level is - if they are not willing to listen to your restrictions and knowledge on the vaccines and diet, thank them and walk away.
I made the mistake of seeing a vet I wasn't fully comfortable with for my Sugar Gliders. She said she was comfortable seeing me and taking my money, but refused to run basic urinalysis tests and perscribed me antibiotics on my hunch with no medical backup. Dont make that mistake! :) Good luck!
I'm not in your part of the country, but I do use a lot of 'natural' medicine in my practice, as well as am very experienced in exotic pet medicine and surgery.
However, I must say this: If you choose not to vaccinate your dogs, start saving up your money in a special account NOW..because it will be only a matter of time before your dogs are exposed to and come down with distemper or parvo, which are very expensive to treat, and often fatal.
Unless they live in a plastic bubble, they WILL eventually be exposed..possibly even by you, just by walking through a store or in a yard and picking up the viruses on your shoes and bringing them home to your dogs. I see it all the time.
Edited to add: There is not a single place in the country where rabies is 'dead.' Just because you don't hear of cases, doesn't mean they aren't out there. It is a state LAW for the protection of humans that dogs be vaccinated for rabies, since dogs are more likely to come into direct contact with wildlife before humans will.then the dogs come in contact with us humans. If you choose to violate your state law, be prepared to pay a hefty fine.
As far as parvo vaccines, we keep them in the refrigerator until just before giving them to our patients. We have received years of in-depth education and training as to how the immune system works, and how to best protect it. Mail-order and feed-store vaccinations are the ones you have to worry about..they have about a 50% failure rate due to improper handling somewhere along the way before they reach their destination.
Arguments can be made both ways as to how often vaccination boosters need to be given for any disease. The only way to know for sure is to do a yearly antibody titer on each dog to see if it has a protective level for that particular virus or if it has sunk to the point of needing a boost. That's really what you should do.and any veterinarian will be happy to draw the blood and send those tests out for you. I just did 3 last week. It's more expensive than just giving the boosters, however, which is why most owners request that we just do that instead. But we still see dogs all the time whose owners get the vaccines only every 2-3 years, and they come down with parvo. (Distemper vaccinations can do that, too, but less frequently..they seem to last a little bit longer.)
As an example: Just had a 4-year-old dog in a couple of weeks ago that tested strongly positive for parvo and had a depressed WBC, along with other very typical symptoms. She had her normal puppy series and a booster a year later, but then the owner stopped. She wished she hadn't. Sure would have saved her a lot of money..and saved her dog a lot of needless pain. (She recovered with aggressive IV treatment for 3 days in the hospital, and is now doing well.)
Any vet or animal person that doesn't push shots is not the practitioner you want. All puppies should have the full set of shots and a booster a year later. I did decide this year to have my yearly vaccines with my rabies every three years due to the excessive over vaccinating that is done. We have seen auto immune develop in dogs that were over vaccinated.
However; my dogs are exposed to many of these diseases due to rescue and have built up their own immunities. I go by the rabies vaccination schedule that I have to abide by in my state. If the three year booster is good enough for rabies it should hold true for the other diseases.
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