Vaccinating Your Dog

HALO believes dogs should be protected from serious disease without being over-vaccinated. We titer all dogs when they come into HALO and vaccinate only when needed.

For our foster dogs, HALO uses Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory for distemper and parvovirus titer testing. A titer is a blood test that checks whether a dog already has antibodies showing protection. If the titer shows adequate immunity, the dog does not need to be revaccinated for those diseases at that time.

HALO expects adopters to continue this careful approach after adoption:

• Use titers for distemper and parvovirus instead of automatically repeating vaccines.

• Avoid unnecessary combination vaccines.

• Be very cautious about non-core vaccines, which should not be given automatically.

HALO believes small dogs should not receive the Leptospirosis vaccine, a view shared by many veterinarians, because of the higher incidence of side effects in small dogs.

Other non-core vaccines, such as Bordetella and Lyme, should be considered only when there is a clear need based on the dog’s health, lifestyle, location, and risk of exposure.

Over-vaccination is an important issue for HALO because many of our rescues are small, older, medically fragile, or recovering from years without consistent care. Our goal is simple: protect them from disease while avoiding unnecessary medical risk.