Lyme Vaccine

I've been resisting this for the longest time, but it just might make
sense for the dogs to be vaccinated. A couple of years ago, Khan came
up Lyme positive. Then, earlier this year, Pan did. Khan's latest test
came back positive, but we'll be running an additional test to see if
this is just a response to exposure or indicative of the disease.

Given that the Mid-Atlantic has turned into Lyme central, does it make
sense to vaccinate? I've read conflicting reports about its
effectiveness, but some protection might be worthwhile, instead of just
going the Doxy routine, once a year.

Suja

buglady wrote:

> ........By testing positive, do you mean they had antibodies?

Yup. Khan was symptomatic the first time around, so we treated without
doing any additional tests. Pan had always tested negative before, so
when she tested positive, we treated her as well.

> What kind of
> test was used?

It was a combo test for HW, Lyme, and Ehrlichia, the C6 SNAP. They have
decided to go the combo route because roughly 50% of the dogs are
turning up positive for Lyme.

> From what I gather the new C6 SNAP test can indicate whether
> it's an active disease.

We'll be doing a Quantitative C6 next. It's hard to tell if he is
symptomatic, though. He grunts a little when he has to lie down, which
is new for him, but the cold weather brings out the puppy in him, so
he's so much more active now than he has been in months.

> ......If I were you I'd join the Tick List and ask your questions.

I think that I'll do just that. I'm getting sick and tired of the
little bastards infecting the dogs. Unfortunately, short of encasing
them in a coccoon, there is no way to keep the dogs separated from the
ticks. I pick dog and deer (to a lesser extent) ticks off the dogs
practically every time they go out in the yard. We probably have the
last stand of trees in the entire county, and have herds of deer living
here. And I pick about a dozen ticks off Khan every time we go on
anything resembling a serious hike. Just in the past week, I've picked
3 attached ticks off him. It is getting to the point where I'm
thinking, to hell with the tests, we'll treat them annually with a
course of Doxy (yes, I know how dangerous this sort of thinking is).

As always, thank you for your insight, Buglady. You always have
interesting information to convey.

Suja