All my life we have had dogs and cats, aways large dogs. These various pets were given their jags when puppies or kittens and that was that...........nothing more unless they were ill.

These days everyone with a dog gets it jagged once a year, a booster jag. The vet makes money ( £40 a dash) and the drug companies make money but what about the health of the dog?

There is a big thing going on in the US about the problems associated with booster jags and what they contain. Many people are statting that their dogs have died not long after having a booster jag. I have never been infavour of them but swmbo insists. The only benifit I see is that kennels wont take dogs that do not have their vaccinations up to date.

Kito took seriously ill last year, September, he had his booster in August. The vet and the Animal Hospital could not work out why Kito had became so seriously ill and what the root cause was. I took him to the vet earlier this week to have a sore paw looked at. A bandage some cream and a thank you.....£87. I mentioned to the vet that he was due his booster and pointed out what had happened last year. The vet said he did not think Kito should be given a booster.

I contacted the animal Hospital and the vet who has been looking after Kito said she also thinks he should not be given a booster. She wrote...'not to vaccinate as the masticatory mytositis is an immune-meditated disease. As the infection risks in the UK is low and most other dogs are vaccinated. I think the risk of worsening the disease outweighs the benefit of being vaccinated.'

I think that there is too much of a coincidence between the jag and the illness and will not have another dog vaccinated.

If you have a dog all this is well worth looking into and of course can be done easily over the net.

Will do Steve

Interesting .... thanks for that Steve

If you must have your dogs and cats vaccinated make sure you get the vet to 'map' them. I mean that the vaccine should never be put in the same place time after time.

I lost a beautiful cat to a vaccine induced sarcoma on Februery 14th 2008. It was dreadful. You think you are doing your best for your animals - off to the vet - a quick jag in the neck and you relax. A small lump appears - operate to remove it and find it is malignant. Within a month it is back - vet advises another op - Jess was so brave. A month later it is back. You can't operate as there is not enough tissue left, and, bless her, she has been through too much.

Please take this seriously - it is rare, but devastating.

This is an excellent post Stevie, thank you. I had a dilemma myself, having inherited a 7 year old dog who was vaccinated at the normal few weeks old, but has never had booster jabs throughout his life. He is now 9 years old, and in great health, one part of me tells me I should go to the Vet and see about the booster jabs, and the other tells me to leave him alone. I understand that the puppy vaccinations only last seven years anyway, without boosters, so that would mean him having the full lot again. Of course, the drawback is that I cannot kennel him and so we take him with us whenever we go on holiday and then on the otherhand, I don't want him to contract any disease because of lack of immunisation

Mazzy, I'm so sorry to hear your story, you must have been devastated.

It sure is devastating to lose your pet. I had Brogan fully vaccinated when we got him but I am not sure of getting further ones. Max never had any and he was healthy until he got sick and it wasn't through any dog disease, mostly old age and he lives until he was 16 which is good for such a big dog.

I have only just seen this thread, but will add to it.

We too only had our dogs inoculated once plus a booster about 6 months later if I recall correctly. We lived out in the sticks and the dogs never came into contact with other dogs.

Then we moved onto a village estate and had just one dog whom we brought with us. He always went out on a lead and still never came into contact with other dogs. He did, however, pick up a couple of little doggy bugs that were soon sorted with a course of antibiotics. I too do not subscribe to repeatedly having these injections.

However, if you have a cat, please be aware of feline leukaemia and get this jab done every year. Feline leukaemia is spread through bodily fluids so, if your cat has a fight with an infected cat and gets some of it's blood for instance, your cat too can get infected. There is no cure for this illness so once your cat gets infected, it's a death sentence.

My Vet tells me that even a cat which has been inoculated against it can catch it and it makes them very ill although it doesn't always kill them.