# My Dog Is Sick After Shots-Is This Normal?



## SageLady

My 5 year old Pug had his rabies and DHHP shots late afternoon at the vet's. He has since thrown up several times during the night. He's never done this before after his shots. He also had a cyst on his upper leg drained to make sure it wasn't cancerous, but I didn't think that would cause a bad reaction either. He's really not feeling good. Anyone else's dog had a bad reaction to their shots? Should I call the vet?


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## TxHorseMom

Yes, call your vet. He could be having a reaction to the shots, or it could be something else. But a call is definately in order.


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## Wolf Flower

Vaccine reactions aren't common, but they do occur. Call your vet and let them know what's going on.


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## SageLady

Well, wound up taking him back into the vet's this afternoon. He's been so sick for hours, hasn't been able to keep anything down, not even water. The vet gave him a shot for the nausea and he's not supposed to have any food or water until tomorrow. Hope this cures it. Vet didn't know exactly what was causing it, but could have been reaction to shots. My other dog had the same shots and is fine. 

I hate seeing my baby suffering like this and oh, the mess has been horrible. Will have to steam clean my carpets after this. DH has been very helpful in cleaning up the messes. I have such joint problems with my Lupus that getting down on the floor is impossible for me, so his cleaning help has been especially appreciated. Love that man! He can be so ornery at times, but is always there to help when I need him.


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## Ravenlost

I hope your little guy feels better soon! Sometimes I think they get sick just because of the stress of going to the vet. Usually it's one of our cats that will throw up after going to the vet for shots.

Let us know how he's doing tomorrow (hopefully back to normal).


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## Cynecagsd

Wanted to post to this yesterday but had to go through the registration process. LOL

First, any time a pet has an adverse reaction after vaccines or any vet visit (especially vaccines) you need to take the pet back to the vet asap, or imeadiately if not sooner. This can be an emergency situation.

One has to understand the nature or allergic reactions. It is typical what you reported that your dog had shots before and had no adverse reaction. That is because allergies are the result of repeated exposure to the cause of the allergic attack. It is more the norm then the exception that an animal reacts to the repeated exposure to the allergin, it is less common to react to the first exposure. 

Common visual and physical manisfestation of the allergy are localized swelling at the injection site, fever, lethargy, swelling around face, swelling of the tongue, difficulty breathing, vomiting, and diarrhea. Sudden acute symptoms can include, seizures, extream difficulty breathing to inability to breathe, unconsciousness, and death. This is why any allergic reaction should be considered an emergency and you need to return to the vet even if you only notice slight symptoms, as they can progress. You can give a dog (notice I said DOG) a .25 mg benadryl before transport to begin the process of combating the allergic reaction, but make sure you inform the vet upon arrival of the administration of the benadryl.

You stated that your pup had the DHHP vaccine. Many times that vaccine also has the Leptospirosis vaccine in it, and the experience of our clinic is that if a dog is going to react to the vaccine, it is the Lepto portion that he/she reacts to. As a result, we took to not giving the lepto portion to dogs before the 6 month time period, and never to dogs that had reacted to vaccines before. We noted that we had less allergic reactions once we stopped the Lepto vaccine, and and none in animals that had reported allergic reactions in previous vaccine visits. We also keep a dog that has previously reacted to vaccines for the day (not overnight) to observe so if there is anohter reaction we are quick to jump on it and treat. In those animals we pretreat with a dose of benadryl 30 minutes prior to vaccinating. You might ask your vet if dosing with benadryl is a good idea for your dog any time he/she is scheduled to have vaccinations, as well as the dosage for your dog.

As for what to do now tht the crisis has passed. For the first 6 to 8 hours after last episode of vomiting, nothing should be given by mouth. Once you are able to give water, give small frequent amounts, we told owners to drop and ice cube in the bowl every 20 to 30 minutes. This keeps the dog from gorgingon water and making himself sick again. Gradually increase the amount of water fromm the ice cube to 1/4 a cup, to a half and so on until he can handle free choice water. If at any time during this the dog vomits, wait an hour and go back to square 1 with the ice cubes. 

Same goes for food. No food for at least 10 to 12 hours. Then begin with rice boiled in chicken broth, and ground up skinless and boneless chicken or lean ground beef boiled until done. Mix with the rice and let cool. Feed small frequent meals starting with about a tablespoon every 2 to 3 hours increasing by small incriments until he is eating a normal sized meal. Feed the chicnken/ground beef and rice meal for about 2 days on the regular schedul then gradually mix in his normal diet starting at 3/4 amount chicken and rice to 1/4 amount normal diet, then half and half, then 1/4 chicken rice mix to 3/4 normal diet, and then back to normal diet.

The food instructions should also be used if you ever change the dogs diet to a different brand or type of food. Substitute the normal diet for the chicken and rice mixture in the above instructions, and the new food for the normal diet in the above instructions. The change in diet should take about 3 to 4 days.

While I can not claim to be a certified veterinary technician, I did spend 8 years as the lead assistant in an animal emergency clinic, and am imparting what we would tell owners of pets who had allergic reactions.

Hope this helps and I really hope your pup is doing better today.


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## SageLady

Thanks everyone. He is doing much better. I really don't think it was caused by stress. He's been to the vet several times for various things and has never been sick like this. He threw up every hour on the hour for a 24 hour period and was terribly lethargic. I really think he must of had a bad reaction to the vaccines this time around. 

Well, anyway he is feeling much better, finally keeping food down, and smiling his Puggy smile again - what a huge relief!!


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## Minelson

Cynecagsd said:


> Wanted to post to this yesterday but had to go through the registration process. LOL


Great post! Welcome to the pet forum :banana02:


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## mekasmom

SageLady said:


> Thanks everyone. He is doing much better. I really don't think it was caused by stress. He's been to the vet several times for various things and has never been sick like this. He threw up every hour on the hour for a 24 hour period and was terribly lethargic. I really think he must of had a bad reaction to the vaccines this time around.
> 
> Well, anyway he is feeling much better, finally keeping food down, and smiling his Puggy smile again - what a huge relief!!


The parvo part of the vaccine is a modified live virus. Modified, yes, but it is still live. Supposedly, it just cannot reproduce. 
And some vaccines from some companies seem to have more reactions than others. Small puppies can actually die from it, but that is so very rare. The risk of not vaccinating outweighs the risk of vaccinating IMO. 

I'm glad your dog is an adult, and did ok eventually. You might ask the vet which vaccine they actually used, and make sure he gets another one from a different company next time or else demand they downsize it to only give him half. Many people like the Fort Dodge brand, and I know my dogs do great with the Merial brand, but I have seen more reactions to the Shering Plough (Merck) vaccines in them like fevers and general malaise. I have never had experience with my dogs and the Fort Dodge vaccines, but I know I absolutely won't allow them to get a Merck if it can be avoided. If the vet only has that brand, then I demand they only use half a vaccine on the puppies.

Now, the rabies vaccine is dead, so it isn't as dangerous as the parvo. Or at least I have never seen a lot of reactions in my dogs to any rabies they have ever gotten over the years. Of course the booster you had was a multiple, but with those symptoms you would be suspicious of the parvo ingredient in it.


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## Oregon Julie

IMO at 5 years of age this dog doesn't NEED to be given a DHLPP vaccine anymore. It either has gained immunity via it's earlier vaccinations and still has that immunity and will for a very long time or it doesn't have it and more shots will not change that. If for some reason you are not comfortable with the above opinion and feel you must give him more shots, break them up a bit. Don't take him to be injected with 6 little diseases (live/modified live/killed or whatever) all at once. This is overloading his system, hence the reaction.


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## bluemoonluck

Oregon Julie said:


> IMO at 5 years of age this dog doesn't NEED to be given a DHLPP vaccine anymore. It either has gained immunity via it's earlier vaccinations and still has that immunity and will for a very long time or it doesn't have it and more shots will not change that. If for some reason you are not comfortable with the above opinion and feel you must give him more shots, break them up a bit. Don't take him to be injected with 6 little diseases (live/modified live/killed or whatever) all at once. This is overloading his system, hence the reaction.


IIRC the protocol is that if you give the dog the accepted DHLPP series as a puppy, then vaccinate one year after the last puppy shot is given, they are supposed to have immunity for life.

So I do my puppy shots at 6, 9, 12, and 16 weeks. One year after the last puppy shot (when the dog is 1 year 4 months old) they get their final booster. Supposedly the vaccine challenge studies show that the immunity is solid if you follow this protocol.


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## MARYDVM

I haven't seen any challenge studies that have followed dogs for life. Immunological studies, yes, challenge studies, no.

I, personally, have seen - 

A 10 year old Rottweiler that had multiple vaccines in younger years, with none given after 5 years of age that came down with chronic distemper (and was euthanized) after the family brought a one year old unvaccinated dog infected with distemper into the house.

2 months ago we euthanized a 5year old dog who had vaccines as a youngster, but none in the last 4 years who was in liver failure and suffering from acute distemper(confirmed by lab testing)

Anecdotal evidence only, you can blame it on faulty individual immune systems,if you want, but I have never seen a dog that was current on vaccinations develop distemper.


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## bluemoonluck

MARYDVM said:


> I haven't seen any challenge studies that have followed dogs for life. Immunological studies, yes, challenge studies, no.
> 
> I, personally, have seen -
> 
> A 10 year old Rottweiler that had multiple vaccines in younger years, with none given after 5 years of age that came down with chronic distemper (and was euthanized) after the family brought a one year old unvaccinated dog infected with distemper into the house.
> 
> 2 months ago we euthanized a 5year old dog who had vaccines as a youngster, but none in the last 4 years who was in liver failure and suffering from acute distemper(confirmed by lab testing)
> 
> Anecdotal evidence only, you can blame it on faulty individual immune systems,if you want, but I have never seen a dog that was current on vaccinations develop distemper.


I think the AVMA recommends boosters every 3 years, so that's what I do. I'm not against vaccinations in any way, but I don't think they need to be given as often as they have been in years past.


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## Oregon Julie

MARYDVM said:


> Anecdotal evidence only, you can blame it on faulty individual immune systems,if you want, but I have never seen a dog that was current on vaccinations develop distemper.


It may well have been faulty individual immune systems that led to the problems you mentioned. If that is the case no amount of vaccination was going to prevent what happened to the dogs involved. The problem is while you may not have ever see a dog current on vaccinations develop distemper I have seen a number who were current on parvo develop it and die because they fell into the non-responder category. 

I have also owned a dog who died from Immune Mediated Hemolactic Anemia and I know of many others who also died from this illness and it is without a doubt in most cases caused by over vaccination. We don't know what constitutes "over vaccination" for each individual dog. In some cases it might be just a few shots, in others you might be able to jab the heck out of them and never have a problem. However at the point that this 5 year old Pug is at, having had a bad reaction to the vaccination, why risk it again?

From the experiences that a number of my friends have had with their dogs and giving more vaccinations after one that caused a reaction, it more often then not gets worse with each one given. Why put the dog through that if the likelihood of them needing any additional vaccine is so slight?

As I said to begin with, if the OP is not comfortable not giving shots then they should at the very least break them up. Don't give a rabies when you do anything else. Have your vet get stand along shots for the things covered in the DHLPP. They can do it, they don't often like doing it but it is available and when you do it don't do them all at once. It means multiple trips to the clinic, but it is worth it for the health of the dog.


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## SageLady

Thank you, Cynecagsd, for the great advice! For some reason I did not see your post last time I posted. And welcome to the Pet Forum! 

And thank you to everyone else too. I appreciate your thoughts on this.


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## Cynecagsd

You are quite welcome. So glad Pugster is doing well.

Some interesting thoughts going on here in this thread. Over vaccinating has been a hot topic in numerous pet forums that I have frequented over the years. A couple things to consider thought.

1. Some states (Texas for example) require yearly rabies shots that must be given by a licensed veterinarian. God forbid that your dog or cat bite or scratch somone who either chooses or has to go to the doctor for treatment in that senerio and your pet has not been vaccinated for rabies. In this case vaccinated or not the pe must go through a 10 day quarenteen but then the pet will be vaccinated upon leaving the quarenteen vet or kennel. Inciendtally most vets use the 3 year rabies vaccination even in states that require yearly rabies vaccines.

2. some breeds are notorious for having poor imunological response to vaccinations. German Shepherds, Dobermans, Rottweilers specifically. In those breeds I would suggest at least every other year vaccinations, and the same for pets that travel alot. If your pet stays home, in their own yard, and does not get out and roam, you can probably get away with every 3 years of so. There is a risk as parvo is easly born from the yard of an infected animal to yours on the feet of cats, people, and even wild life. Usually however in an older dog parvo, and caronavirus does no more then give them the runs for a few days and might make them feel bad and even vomit, but is rarely as life threatening in an older adult dog then it is to the puppy or the elderly dog.

You can, at some expense, run an imunological blood titer for the various diseases that pets are vaccinated for and see what the immune status of your pet is and decide if vaccinations are needed or not. I have never really trusted titer teats ever since I had a dog that tested negative for Eherlichia on a blood titer test yet had the pathological signs in his blood smere for the riketsial disease. We treated him for Eherlichia and he recovered nicely.

Being a GSD owner, and that being one of the breeds that is notorious for lack of imuno response to vaccines, I feel much better vaccinating yearly, or at least every other year. I order my own vaccinations and administer them myself, with the exception of the rabies vaccine. 

I personally have never seen the things that are blamed on over vaccinating, and know for a fact that my dogs have been exposed to parvo virus and have never suffered from that exposure witht he exception of one. That one was a puppy I bred who had had only one vaccination and was 7 weeks old. The exposure was due to a dog we were treating in the clinic, which after handling I went through the proper disinfecting protocol, and came home, changed clothes in the garage, and was headed to the shower befor ever getting close to the pup (1 puppy litter) when my husband let the dam out to go to the restroom and she ran up to me and jumped up on me. Within 48 hrs the puppy had the first parvo symptoms, tested positive for parvo and we successfully treated him.

Lastly, in the years I worked for the clinic, we had a 98% recovery rate for parvo treatment. Granted we aggressively treated parvo with supportive care and antibiotics to prevent secondary bacterial infection. Of all those we treated for parvo, a good 80 to 85% were animals that had not completed the recommended vaccination schedule, and the few we lost were either dogs that had never been vaccinated or had had only 1 vaccination. The dogs that came in for parvo treatment that had either gone through the recommended vaccination protocol and still contracted parvo, or were in the process of doing so, were either GSDs, Dobermans, or Rotts. 

These statistics say to me it is better to follow the recommended vaccination protocol then to risk exposure to an under protected dog. But that is just my opinion.


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## mekasmom

You know, just as an interesting side note, I will tell you about what I saw in one of our dogs. We go to a naturopath, and one of the ladies who works there does live blood analysis on the side at her home. She does the analysis professionally for the doctor too, so she does know how to do this well. Anyway, one of the dogs had a growth on her leg, and the vet thought it was a cancer. Before having it removed, I called the lady to get a LBA to see if she thought it was cancer because they all say you can see it in the blood before you ever see a manifestation on the body. (I'm big into alternative medicine). So, looking at the blood, there was some fluorescent green specks all over the slide floating around in that spot of blood. I was shocked, and asked what it was. She was so calm and said, "Oh that's just chemical from a recent vaccine or something. Did you get her a shot recently?" It was so strange because I get darkfield microscopy on our blood or on one of the pets' blood often, and had never seen any green chemical stuff in any of the blood before. It was just scary to think that vaccines can cause little specks of green chemicals to float around in your blood. The dog had gotten a vaccine at the vet's office just a couple of days before when I had her leg spot checked. The only bad thing she saw in the blood was target cells, and I have no idea what those are really, but she didn't seem overly concerned about them.

But.... to end the story..... the lady said she didn't think there was any cancer, try oregano essential oil on the growth to see if that helps, maybe it was a fungus. That didn't help after a week, so we tried frankincense oil and it was gone with just a few applications. Dog's fine, and she never did have any surgery on that leg. The lump/spot was gone with just a few applications of a drop of the correct essential oil. And this was 2-3 years ago. I still take her ( and all of them) in for her rabies vaccine and other vet care, but I do think about vaccines a lot more now when I take in the girls. Still, I think the advantages of parvo protection, as well as other diseases, outweigh the possible side effects.


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## SageLady

Here in Missouri it is the law that a dog must have a rabies shot once a year....


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## bluemoonluck

SageLady said:


> Here in Missouri it is the law that a dog must have a rabies shot once a year....


I worked for a cat vet once....she really knew her stuff, and offered clients an option: 1 year rabies vaccine or 3 year vaccine. We told clients that the 3-year vaccine was given less often, but it had a higher rate of cancers forming at the vaccination site because of its formulation. The 1 year vaccine had to be given more often, but it had less of the junk in it that scientists suspect cause cancer.

I lived in a big University town, and one day I was giving this spiel to one of our new clients who turned out to be a research scientist. He said that we were ignoring the fact that the 1-year vaccine required a shot with a needle once a year and that there was evidence that the metals in the needles may be responsible for at least some of the cancers. In his opinion, it was a wash - 3 year vaccine was iffy, but giving 3 of the 1 year vaccines was equally iffy.

I've wondered if that's the reason that we sometimes hear about tumors at the site of microchips - is it the chip itself, or the massively large needle that is used to insert it.

Food for thought.....


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## FoxyWench

i do titer testing...

what you (op) describe it does sound like an alergic reaction, probably to the lepto or rabies...

we dont do combo vacines EVER (vets suggestion and no i dont pay extra because we seperate them it actually costs less lol) we never do lepto or bordatella, EVER (i dont board and the Kennel cough vaccine is not effective enough, and my dogs are never left outside unspeurevised to ever come into contact with standing water that rats/mice might have urinated in...so...
i also dont do lymes.

we also never give rabies the same day we give other shots, i ALWAYS wait 2 weeks between "normal" shots and the rabies vac.

thus far though since we began titer testing the ONLY vacine they have needed in 8 years is rabies and thats only because its required by law. so far no need to re-vacinate after the intial puppy shots (didnt even need to do 1yr booster on either of my chinese cresteds or cat.)
though it is a little more expensive to titer test, i prefer it.


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## GoldenMom

bluemoonluck said:


> I worked for a cat vet once....she really knew her stuff, and offered clients an option: 1 year rabies vaccine or 3 year vaccine. We told clients that the 3-year vaccine was given less often, but it had a higher rate of cancers forming at the vaccination site because of its formulation. The 1 year vaccine had to be given more often, but it had less of the junk in it that scientists suspect cause cancer.
> 
> I lived in a big University town, and one day I was giving this spiel to one of our new clients who turned out to be a research scientist. He said that we were ignoring the fact that the 1-year vaccine required a shot with a needle once a year and that there was evidence that the metals in the needles may be responsible for at least some of the cancers. In his opinion, it was a wash - 3 year vaccine was iffy, but giving 3 of the 1 year vaccines was equally iffy.
> 
> I've wondered if that's the reason that we sometimes hear about tumors at the site of microchips - is it the chip itself, or the massively large needle that is used to insert it.
> 
> Food for thought.....


Just for the record, the one year cat rabies vaccine *is* a different vaccine than the dog vaccine, so it's not just a 3-year vaccine given every year.


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## bluemoonluck

GoldenMom said:


> Just for the record, the one year cat rabies vaccine *is* a different vaccine than the dog vaccine, so it's not just a 3-year vaccine given every year.


Yup, it was a totally different vaccine, and we were told that it was formulated completely differently than the 3-year one.


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## Haven

http://www.dogs4dogs.com/JR_PDFs from Book/DurationofImmunity Schultz.pdf

DOI Duration of Immunity

It should be noted that the DOI can only be proven up to the point the study lasts.


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## Minelson

I have done titer testing on Shep and haven't given him any vaccines since he was 7 years old. So that is over 10 years ago.


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