On  May 22, 2014 I had Buddy vaccinated at Amesbury Animal Hospital with the canine influenza vaccine. This is what I learned…

First background:

There were only 4 confirmed cases of canine influenza, all at the same doggie day care, with the same vet.

Amesbury Animal Hospital is generally recommending it for dogs in situations where they will be exposed to a LOT of other dogs.

About the Vaccine…

The vaccine is given in 2 visits. Your dog will not be protected until several days/weeks after the SECOND BOOSTER. Second booster is given at least 2 weeks after the first vaccine.

IMPORTANT…VACCINE DOES NOT PREVENT FLU! However, it is suppose to help lessen the symptoms and reduce the time that the flu lasts.

Is Seacoast Pet Sitting requiring clients to vaccinate?   We are not requiring it at this time but like Amesbury Animal Hospital, we are recommending it to clients with dogs that are exposed to a lot of other dogs.

We are a small facility and most of our clients dogs only come here and do not have a lot of interaction with dogs outside of our facility. I have asked one client who’s dog goes to a separate large doggie day care to have their dog vaccinated. We keep our facility clean and dogs that are here just for vacation pet sitting are normally kept separate from our daily clients.

So why did I get Buddy vaccinated? I figure better to be safe than sorry.  Buddy does interact with some of our vacation pet care dogs so he is with more dogs than our daily clients (never more than 4).

For more information we have included a link to an  ASPCA article on Canine Influenza…

http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/dog-care/canine-influenza-viruscanine-flu