Titre Testing

[persephone]

I will post a couple of excerpts ...

LINK HERE

After a little while, I picked her up, held her gently and clipped off some hair on her right front leg. Then I put some local anaesthetic cream on the bald spot and put her back down for a few minutes to let that soak in. I asked her mum to hold her firmly, as I had to collect just a smidgen of blood from her front leg. We had a bit of a wrestle, and some yelling about being restrained, but in the end we got there.

I gathered 10 microlitres of the blood, and popped it into the first well of the titer test kit, which had been sitting in a bowl of warm water, getting up to the right temperature.

...could see the comforting dark spots getting stronger and stronger, telling me that this little one had seroconverted from her first vaccination.

This meant that we didn't need to give her the next two puppy vaccinations that 99% of vet clinics would blindly administer, without checking to see if they were needed, hence unnecessary putting the pups at risk of adverse reactions.

Best practice is to test to see if your puppy or older pet actually needs to be re-vaccinated.

[Jumabaar]

From the manufactures guidelines for the in-house titre test.

How should the kit be used in assessing puppy vaccination status

The recommended puppy protocol is to give the injections at 8, 12 and 14 weeks. Prior to that maternal antibody will negate the vaccine. In a few cases even 14 weeks is still too soon and the puppy is not protected as expected. It is recommended to therefore use the test at 16 weeks to test for antibody and if negative to vaccinate one more time and then repeat the test again after two weeks. That way you can be certain that the dog is protected prior to its next titer test at 12 months rather than leaving an unvaccinated susceptible puppy for 8 months.

I actually emailed Dr Schultz to enquire re titre testing my last pup instead of vaccinating.

It is very likely an 8 week old pup will have maternal antibody.Maternal antibody to CDV,CPV and CAV can and often does persist for up to 12 to 16 wks when the mother has high antibody titers to the above viruses.What you can do is collect blood when you vaccinate at 6 wks and again at 8 to 10 wks of age or older.If the titer is 4 fold or greater after vaccination then the dog has responded to the vaccine and has been immunized.I hope this helps!

So I am more than happy to titre test puppies instead of vaccinating but if done before 16 weeks I would require 2 tests before I was happy to say that the pup was protected.

[persephone]

Good info, Jumabaar, thanks :)