lyme disease vaccination?

new2newengland

As my name says I am New to the New England Area. When we took Tyson to the vet they recommended getting him vaccinated for lyme disease. Our vet back in the midwest had never brought it up before, so we looked confused and the vet told us that New England has the highest of lyme disease in humans and pets in the country. We have him on flea and tick prevention but even with that we found two ticks on him this summer so we decided to get him the vaccination. Looking back I wish we would have held off on it so I could learn more. So my question to you is do you get this vaccination for your pet? Would you?

leamgood

I talked with my vet because my dogs are younger and do not have the disease already and he recommended it. It is one of the easier diseases to treat (in most cases) if they were to get it. However, if you do decide to get the vaccine make sure you still frontline them because ticks carry more then just that disease. After talking with my vet I decided it was the best option for my "kiddies" to get the vaccine.

new2newengland

Thanks for the reply! We are definitely keeping him on frontline as well. 

DorothyofOz

Do it!

I'm not sure if we ever got our dogs vaccinated....I was young then, so I didn't pay attention to vet stuff. But just last year (or the year before?) my mom's dog was infected and she almost died because of it. There's no cure so she's on medicines I think to keep it in control. I don't know if Roxy was on tick control stuff, but I know she was on the flea stuff (and still ended up with fleas and my mom STILL can't get rid of them--different story). It was a really terrible experience for my mom, so I would definitely go ahead and get it for your dog. Better safe than sorry!

jen812

I would definitely do it. I passed on the vaccine with my last dog, when I didn't know better & was trying to cut costs as much as possible. She ended up getting the disease.
Luckily for het, it didn't affect her until much later in life. Symptoms are very similar to arthritis, so it was hard to pinpoint what she was suffering from.
My friend's dog (also not vaccinated against it) wasn't so lucky & had to be put down too soon because of the disease attacking his organs (I want to say it was the pancreas, but don't remember).
I just pulled a tick off my dog the other day, believe it or not.

TheLinkBride

I do not vaccinate for lyme disease (disclaimer, I also don't live in New England).  If you want to read some information, including references, on lyme disease and why some people do not give the vaccine, this might be helpful.  Of course there are opinions on both sides, but I think it is useful to do your research to make an informed decision.