Seriously, how Often do Dogs Need Rabies Vaccines?
The recent post on rabies vaccinations in dogs has generated a few interesting comments. One, in particular, caught my attention.
Green posted a comment on January 7th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
My 7 pound dog is always inside with me or in the fenced urban garden. I take him on leas[h]ed walks at a paved park. When or how could he be exposed to rabies? If our law requires vaccines every three years do you still recommend a yearly vaccine like his vet says. I see a greater, more likely danger in losing my dog to a vaccine reaction than rabies.
I recommend adhering to local rabies vaccination requirements unless a specific reason exists to increase the frequency of vaccination.
Green, your dog is at low risk of exposure to rabies. Remember that low is not the same as zero. For instance, a rabid bat could fly into your back yard and bite your dog. Bats have tiny teeth, and most bitten individuals do not suffer significant wounds. In many instances, the wounds aren’t visible. Bats are ubiquitous in urban and rural areas. They are a leading carrier of rabies in the US.
If a rabid bat in your backyard sounds implausible, consider the case of Zachary Jones, a teenager in Texas who died after a rabid bat flew through his window and bit him while he was sleeping.
Such cases may be rare, but they are sensational and tragic. They give local governments a legitimate reason to take steps they believe may protect humans from exposure to rabies.
Green, if your dog has been vaccinated against rabies at least twice, he’s probably immune for life. Even if he is the one-in-ten-million case in which a mainly indoor dog is bitten by a rabid bat, he probably would be fine.
But there is absolutely no way to prove that. Rabies titers (blood tests to measure immunity) are not 100% accurate. There is absolutely no way to prove that an individual is immune to rabies. I, personally, have been vaccinated against the disease seven times. My titer is very high (that’s good). Yet if I were exposed to a rabid animal I would not sit back with a wait-and-see attitude–after all, only a few individuals in the history of humanity have survived rabies after symptoms developed. I’d high-tail it to the doctor for post-exposure rabies injections.
Rabies vaccinations are required by law not to protect dogs, but to protect people. Whether you agree with the law or not, you only have a few choices. You can obey the law. Or, although I don’t recommend it, you can ignore the law (this may put your dog at risk of euthanasia for rabies testing if he ever bites anyone). Or, finally, you can challenge the law by contacting your local government.
To those who believe that rabies vaccinations are bad for dogs, consider this. Before the advent of canine rabies vaccination laws, dogs were the leading source of human rabies exposure in the US by a mile. Now they are not. The shift has changed the public’s perception of dogs in a very favorable way. That is good for dogs.
Photo: the gentleman depicted died from rabies in 1959, soon after the photo (courtesy of US CDC) was taken.
You have questions. 
I typed in what does a dog need to stay healthy and didn’t get the answer i was looking for
Interesting seeing this comment about rabies and bats. My dog is pretty much an inside dog and only stays in the fenced yard, etc…..yesterday afternnoon febore 4 Pm I found a bat on the ground of my back yard, he still a life and behaving very strangelly, so I didn’t let my dog get close to it and when I was getting ready to call animal control the bat took flight. If my dog haven’t being vaccinated agains rabbies every 2 years I will be making a trip to the vet even assuming he had not have any contact with the bat. But who can garanty that this bat wasn;t there in the morning when my dog went out to play? Vaccination is very important not just to protect my pets but also to protect me. Your vet is the best person to give you advice how often you should vaccinated your dog and against what.
Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia – This is the medical term for what just killed our precious 7 year old Mini Pin. After much research and months of not understanding what was happening to her, I finally figured it all out. She passed away almost 1 year to the day she was given the 3 year rabies vaccine. Her death was slow and horrific. I am so frustrated with the clinical explanations that the Dr’s office will just alert the manufacturer of a possible ‘bad batch’ so it can be pulled, and in the process our precious dog is dead. If your dog is indoors and always leashed, I would not do the rabbies vaccine again. Good luck to all of us.
Cases of pets getting ill or dying from the actual rabies vaccine are pretty rare. Living in the Midwest, the bat population is becoming more of a problem. We have over populated their previous homes, and now they have to co-exist along side us. So yeah, you may think your little 7 pound, indoor only, puppy can be the exception to government mandated laws. But its not. A rabid bat is confused. Instead of avoiding humans, it will enter your home. It will bite you or your pets. Our animal hospital gets reports once a year of rabid bat incidents in peoples home LOCALLY. Right outside the city of Chicago. The number increases every year. “But my dog has vaccine reactions! I don’t want to!” A vaccine reaction can be mild or severe and often easily prevented or treated. RABIES IS FATAL. Do you really want to risk a FATAL disease? A disease that can be transferred to you and other people and is FATAL to you? A lot of people think vaccines are just a waste. That your vet does it for no reason other than to get you in there every year. Vaccines were developed for animals like they were for people. TO PREVENT THE SPREAD OF CONTAGEOUS DISEASE. If you can protect your beloved pet against a horrible virus, what is stopping you?????