Side Effects of Pet Vaccines: A Closer Look

I just found your site. For my children I am very pro-vaccine but I have had some very bad luck with my dogs. My 18 month old french bulldog had a mysterious back injury (ruptured disk in back) which led to paralysis while RUNNING, one day after receiving her annual vaccines, parvo etc. My second french bulldog, entirely not related, had the same mysterious back injury ONE DAY after her vaccines..

Everyone says coincidence. Come on.

We picked a pound puppy (mix breed), healthy he seemed and around 3-4 months old. Took him for his first check up and vaccination and all went well. Within 7 days he started to lose energy and within 24 hours was lethargic and not eating or drinking. Then the swelling began in his neck. He was diagnosed with puppy strangles which is a swelling and thickening of the lymph nodes. He didn't have open sores on his face, which could occur, but was so ill. He is a small dog (10lbs) and had baseball size swelling on each side of his neck. Steroids are the only treatment with antibiotics to cover him while on them. It has been difficult. The swelling on the side of his neck ended up being abscessed and broke... While discusting - at least it found relief for him. December 25, 2010 he got sick and it was on meds till mid February 2011. His abscess never healed completely till the beginning of March 2011. By the end of March the swelling is back on one side and the Vet doesn't seem optomistic. Vet didn't want more steroids but we are only keeping him on antibiotics. We shall see. I have been reading your articles and may try to remove the food and start giving him a natural diet. Never will he have another vaccination - this has been hell. There has been more then one occasion we thought we were going to lose him and the amount this has cost keeps growing. If anyone has any remedies for puppy strangles would love to know.

hello! i would like to ask what is the side effect of anti rabies vaccine? my poodle terrier 1 year and 10 month old had a vaccine last friday, now, tuesday she's kinda weak, withrawn and her nose is dry. What does this indicates? is this normal?

Hello, I just found your site after yesterday's extensive search about the pet vaccines.

My Charlie is 1 1/2 year old Maltese boy. He received his Lyme Disease vaccine yesterday. Last year he was absolutely fine, but yesterday he developed the aggressive allergic reaction within 20 minutes. I eneded up driving like a lunatic back to the Banfield Animal Hospital. He started to shake his head, scratch his eyes and ears and almost banged his little head against the car window as I was holding him to calm him down. I was terrified.

They administered 2 shots - Benadryl and some steroid one to stop the attack.

Till this day I didn't know there are 2 kinds of vaccines - core and non-core... I pay for his Health Plan with a Banfield Animal Hospital at Petsmart and on numerous ocassions I was looked down for asking too many questions or refusing some advised treatments, because I simply did not think he needed X-rays and tests costing over $600 after having a slight diarrhea.

They charged me another $95 for those 2 shots he was given and sent me home with a baby Benadryl.

After reading all those stories here - many heartbreaking - I decided not to give him any more non-core vaccines. I even read that Giardia vaccine is not effective against the actual disease and it is only in experimental stage.....!!! Now how horrible it sounds?

Are they experimenting on our pets with all those chemicals???

I think all drug companies do that - with pets and with humans as well.... trying all those new drugs, having all those ads on TV and then after few years you learn those so called miracle drugs harmed the liver, kidneys, heart or caused stroke, cancer or even death.

I want to thank you for creating this site and allowing us - pet parents - to share our stories and allowing us to warn others about the effects of drugs and vaccines. I hope many lives will be saved in a future because of warning and articles published here.

My heart goes to all families, that suffered through the ordeals and through the loss of their beloved family member.

Thank you again,

Katie & Charlie.

My dog is about 80lbs mixed breed. Boxer and maybe mastiff and something else. She received a rabies canine 3 yr (made by pfizer) and bordetella and dhpp vaccines at the same time. About 6 days later she became lethargic. 7 days later she refused to eat and started drooling slimy drool(she is not normally a drooler). That evening she had diahrrea that was slimy and yellow/brown. 8 days later she developed a high fever over 104 degrees F and her diahrrea became blackish and her eyes were bloodshot. She looked miserable and had her tail between her legs like she was in pain. My vet told me to give her 4 baby aspirin every 6 - 8 hrs and if no improvement or she worsened to take her to ER. Her temp got up to 105. 6 and I took her in. Her liver is swollen and white blood cell count is 1000 when I am told it should be 7000 or higher. Her protein in the urine is a little high. I forgot what they said about globulin.

So far she has shown no improvement and they want to try a plasma transfusion if this continues. I was told she has extreme abdominal discomfort and has to have pain medication. I don't think it was caused by anything she ate because I have a smaller dog in the house who has eaten everything she has and been everywhere she has and is not ill. The lot number was not listed on the receipt. Some sites say to report the side effects to the drug company? is this wise if I may end up sueing them?

My dog received his vaccinations last Thursday. Within 2 days, he became listless and disinterested in any activity. However, he seems to be fine now. Interesting to me was the greatly reduced heart rate (around 40 bpm for a couple days). It is now back to normal and he has his same high level of energy. I hesitated to get vaccines for a 10 year old dog, but I did wait three years. I see no reason why dogs should get them every 3 years and the research I have read in journals of veterinary medicine indicate that most dogs are over vaccinated. Now that he is a senior, I probably will forego them in the future. According to the literature, he should have lifetime immunity at this point. We don't vaccinate humans until the day they day, so why should we do this with our animals? My dog also has many food allergies and is on a limited ingredient diet.

I recently had 9 puppies vaccinated at 9 weeks old and within 2 weeks they all had severe bloody diarrhea. While in the vets a gentleman over heard my conversation and said he had his dogs booster done a couple of weeks previous and that she also had the same problem, then a friend had had her dogs booster done and again the same thing... Now one of the pups was diagnosed with giardia as was my friends dog, its seems too much of a coincidence that they all had vaccinations 2 weeks prior to all having severe diarrhea ( they were all fit and well before receiving the vacs) now I have been told that it is not possible to get giardia through the vaccine and it has to be ingested. Just all seems too coincidental to me... pups were labs, the guy in the vets was a lab cross and my friends dog is a parsons russell...

My dog is a Chihuahua mix with Pomeranian. He had some lethargy and fever the next day after recieving his shots. However, he has had diarrhea for the past six days. It is very hard watching him feel like this.

We have taken our 12 week old lab puppies to vet for follow up booster shots. We have 3 puppies. One of the puppies after having the vaccine now is not eating, drinking, and has diarreah and dry nose, and lethargic. We are taking Hershey back to vet today to see if this is a complication. Jack & Honey are fine.

Rusty is our 14 year old Labrador/Cross dog who has annually received his booster vaccination. For the past four years we have put his bouts of lassitude down to old age but eventually realized that the weeks of lethargy were a result of the vaccination of Novibac Lepto 2 and Novibac DHPPi. We were devastated to think we'd been making him suffer. Our decision to cease the injections means he will not be accepted in kennels therefore we cannot travel abroad. However Rusty loves the campervan so we enjoy our holidays exploring the UK.

My 4 month old female GSD puppy had the rest of her vaccinations last week, started having neurological symptoms yesterday, but all labs are normal. She has not eaten anything unusual, and is having ataxia, not lethargic, eating food, but definately calmer than normal, maybe she is frightened of inability to walk straight?
The vaccinations she received are as follows:11/04/10, Lyme, Lepto, Rabies, Dhhp, no symptoms after those at all. 12/06/10, Lyme, Lepto, DHHP, hasn't had her HW prevention as of yet this month. She was given a total of 3 sets of vaccinations in the last 2 months. I've never had this happen before, maybe a little bit of allergic rxn but with benadryl and prednisone, 1 dose of each, it went away, none with this dog. I'm baffled because nothing else can be found. Please let me know; Rabies vaccine from Fort Dodge.

My shih tzu who is 6 years old had his distempter shot on Saturday. I tried to pick him up on Sunday and he yelped in pain and almost bit me which he has never done. He laid in my lap most all day and evening. Today is Monday and he hasn't gotten out of his bed yet. I am concerned about him.

About 7 hours ago both our Lhasa Apso's received the second shot of Lyme's vaccine. About 4 hours later the smaller of the two (he weighs 10 lbs.) began acting like he didn't want to move, he was shaking, no appetite, and was acting very scared. We contacted an emergency vet and they said they could not determine if there was something else going on with the dog without examining him. Prior to the vaccine the dog was fine. In researching the vaccine we found the dogs could suffer all the symptoms of Lyme. Our other Lasa who weighs 20 lbs. is showing signs of being tired and no appetite. We are concerned that they will be suffering with these symptoms for a long time had we know this we would not have gotten the vaccine. Our vet did not tell us what to expect, he told us he felt the vaccine was perfectly safe.

My siberian husky received her Lyme Disease and Rabies shots as scheduled (she was a few months old). Four days later she slowly started becoming paralyzed. She was diagnosed with Coonhound Paralysis. At one point she couldn't move anything, and could barely lift her head. She did eventually walk again, but her legs are crooked in the front, and weak in the back. The two companies involved settled with us, which covered the cost of most of the vet's bills, and Physical Therapy, but Luna will never be normal. I wouldn't wish this on anyone!

I have a Doberman who is 6 weeks old I gave him his first shot myself. It seemed like 24 hours after the shot his poo got runny but was still eating and drinking water. But a couple hours after that he started puking just his food. Then he didn't want any water or food-was weak. He slept through the night had a couple runny poos. This morning he started drinking again and even took a couple of bites of food at 3:00 today it will have been 48 hrs since his shot. He stopped puking but still seems under the weather. Should I take him to the vet?