[SIDE EFFECTS]  11/30/2008: Wong from NT, Hong Kong writes: "My Standard Schnauzer bitch was 17 years old, and had been having annual vaccinations all her life, and anti-rabies shots every 3 years as required by our law.

In 2006, when she was 17 years old, she took the annual vaccination as well as the anti-rabies shot at the same time ( as it was due for the 3-year time frame for the latter).

Within a week, she was sick - turned lethargic, intermittent vomiting. Went to the same vet who gave her the vaccinations. She gave my bitch bagfuls of pills, including some in halves, some in quarters. Had to do it 3 times a day.

My dear Belle was a super darling. The first few days she endured all these pills shoving down her throats, 5 or 6 of them in 5 or 6 shovings, repeated for 3 times a day = imagine, that means a total of close to 20 shovings each day down the throat of a patient who's already not feeling so well.
By about the 5th or 6th day, she started struggling with me during pill shovings, and even when successful, would throw up after 5 minutes with some of the pills seen. As I was not sure if some of the those unseen had been truly ingested by her or dissolved in her vomit, I dared not refeed, in case I would overdose the medicine. But when I didn't, that meant she did not get medicine coverage.

On the 7th day during return visit with the vet, I voiced my concern that all those bags of pills did not seem to make her any better, and each pill-feeding operation had become excruciatingly upsetting and distressing for me and for my dear Belle, as she struggled while I tried to made sure the pills went down her throat, also be careful that it didn't go down too far to choke her.

The vet just said matter-of-factly that "It's difficult. But it had to be done. Those are medicine to treat her." And she packed us off with exactly the same bagfuls of medicine again, to come back in another week.

My Belle had never skipped a meal in her entire 17 years of life. This time she was skipping some meals here and there. I knew in my heart of hearts that something was not right.

What the vet had said about her condition was only some stomach/intestinal disorder, and some of the medicine was for soothing her windpipe = sounded not very alarming, and no specific illness terminology was articulated.

The very night we came back from this return visit, Belle was pacing and yelping at times, obviously distressed. We stayed up with her the whole night. The next morning, I called the vet. She suggested for us to bring her in for something we all sensed at the back of our minds but didn't verbalize on the phone.

Once there, she examined her, and advised me to euthanize her.

There went my sweet Belle.

Within a week of getting her annual vaccination plus anit-rabies shot, she developed illnesses which the vet did not put a specific name to (just general discomfort and the like), and she departed 8 days after seeing the vet.

Meaning she departed after 2 weeks of getting the vaccinations.

I have still to come across a vet who would agree with me that it's the vaccines which took Belle's life.
But how can the connection not be made that my Belle, albeit 17 years old, was healthily eating, walking, pooping, sleeping (the 4 most important indicators of health), suddenly turned down slope in just 1 week after the injections, and departed in 2 ?

Needless to say, I did not go back to the same vet again with my other dogs. Not so much for her inability to save my Belle, but for her uncaring attitude that I should feed those bagfuls of pills to Belle while some dogs revolted even against 1 shoving, so how could the vet think my Belle could take 20 shovings each day, for an entire week, and then another more ?

But the new vet I'm seeing is also a vaccine supporter, and a forceful one at that.

Actually, is there any vet who is not supporting vaccinations, as it is their easy income source ?

I had been agonizing over the issue of "to bring or not to bring" my dogs in for vaccinations each year, especially during the last 4 or 5 years of Belle's life after she turned 'teenager'. Each year, my heart palpitated as I had known the "evil" effects of vaccinations from reading from articles similar to websites as this one ? But the vet made me fearful by saying that all the more I should vaccinate Belle in her senior years as she's in a weakened state of protecting herself against the illnesses.

Finally, after years of my heart-rending and dreaded decision of bringing my dogs in for vaccination, my sweet Belle succumbed in her 17th year.

Bless her. She has had 17 years of good life. And she had given me 17 years of her blessed sweetness.

Now my Was-chu is getting on to 10 years. In 3 or 4 years, I would start to face the dreaded decision each year again of bringing him in for vaccination. Moreso the anti-rabies shot is demanded by law = meaning I'd be a "criminal" if I don't..... how ridiculous our life has become !

If it's said the 21st-century is a high-tech world, why is it that we still have to agonize over the issue of seemingly innocent vaccinations, which may turn out not to be so innocent ?"