NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Erica Miller, DVM with Apple Lane Animal Hospital notes that getting your pet properly vaccinated is important, but there is an additional safeguard if you get the shots at your veterinarian.
"I do have people that'll come in and say, Hey, you know, I'm just going to get my vaccine from Tractor Supply and do it myself or, you know, whatever that may be," Miller said. "You know, if that's what you want to do, that's okay, but we were talking about most vaccine companies. If you are giving your pets vaccines through your veterinarian, so your pet's coming in for a checkup, we're saying, Hey, they're healthy, we're vaccinating them appropriately per the vaccine schedule, if something were to happen in your pet, the example is Parvo. We have had in our practice where we had a non-responder. For some reason, sometimes pets immune systems just don't respond to the vaccines the way they should, so they don't get that protection. If they're vaccinated appropriately by your veterinarian at the right time schedule, and then they still contract, you know, say Parvo, the one in house that we had, I said, Hey, you know, we vaccinated per the schedule. I did it myself, and that pet still came down with Parvo, which is rare. The vaccine company, you know, they stand behind their vaccineand they say, well, you know, we're going to pay for treatment. We want this pet to get better."
That's true of any properly administered medication, not just vaccine, but it does require the documentation a vet is able to provide.
"When you're buying like heartworm medicine, flea and tick from those big box stores, so say Chewy or Amazon or wherever it may be," Miller said. One, we as your veterinarian can't document that you've been giving that medicine appropriately, that it came from somewhere that is a safe place. Like vaccines that you could get over the counter somewhere, you know, we don't always know that they're stored appropriately. So straight into the refrigerator, you know, they haven't been sitting out on a truck. At the veterinarian's office, right, our shipments come regularly. They go straight into the refrigerator, but we don't always know that with different stores that things are stored properly or get into the fridge at the right time or they're handled right. Flea and tick and heartworm medicine, if you're getting it from your veterinarian's office and your pet say gets heartworm, but we can show, Hey, they've been getting the heartworm medicine. They've been giving it appropriately. Your, your pet is that, you know, like 0.1% that maybe gets heartworm, even though they're on heartworm medicine, the company will pay for treatment."
If your pet is not responding to any medication, contact your veterinarian right away, so they can check to see if they need to intervene further.