Tracie Hotchner Blog

I received this question from Chuck in Southern California, looking for a way to avoid giving a rabies vaccination to his older Chi Chi.

I have an 11yr old Chihuahua, “Chalupa” and the animal control people are insisting I give him a rabies shot.  Like everywhere, it’s the law — not what’s best for the dog. Chalupa is the “Golden Child” couch potato of the West: there is no way he is ever going to come in contact with rabies. But they will not renew his license and are threatening further action. I am afraid for Chalupa — in fact, we stopped the yearly BS of vaccines a long time ago. Is there any method or anything I can do to keep from having to vaccinate him?   I’m not talking anything illegal, not at all.  But there must be some way to prevent him from having to be poisoned because of a one-fits-all-law that does not apply to Chalupa at all!

I replied to Chuck –

I appreciate your concern for Chalupa’s health and yes there are legal ways to avoid getting a rabies vaccination, but I’d also like to point out a few issues that you are misinformed about.  First of all, the law requiring rabies vaccinations is actually based on a good premise, which is that rabies is a deadly disease carried by a variety of wild animals, and is devastating to domestic pets and their owners. People and their dogs and cats can contract rabies if they come into contact with even the saliva of a rabid animal. So this is another assumption you are making that Chalupa could never be in jeopardy because if you allow him to walk on the street he can come into contact with a dog with rabies — or a rabid squirrel or other animal. These laws protect people and pets in society.  The current debate about how long a rabies vaccination remains effective is the Rabies Challenge that Dr. Jean Dodds is studying — doing scientific studies to determine whether the vaccine is good for 5 years or even 7 years — instead of the now-recommended every three years.

And the rabies vaccine is not a “poison”  — it serves a very important protective role in canine health. However, the question is whether repeated vaccinations can be harmful to an older dog who is also very small  — since the dose is the same whether for a Chihuahua or a Mastiff. The real question is whether Chalupa’s immune system is already defended against rabies because of earlier vaccinations which have built up immunity in his body (and the same is true for most other vaccines, too). You say the law “does not apply to Chalupa at all” but you won’t know that until you know what his immune system is prepared to handle. So what you should do is have the vet draw blood and send it out to determine the “rabies titer,” meaning whether the level of antibodies to rabies that is circulating in his bloodstream is high enough to defend him against an exposure to the disease. I just had a rabies titer done on my dogs and the lab bill was quite high, so you need to be committed to this idea of wanting to know the bottom line before vaccinating unnecessarily.  I was shocked to discover that my 3-year-old Weimeraner Teddy Bear did not have a high enough titer level for his body to defend against rabies and I had him re-vaccinated immediately. It was a good thing I did that because only a week later Teddy was able to grab a squirrel that ran up a tree and then right back down into Teddy’s mouth (was the squirrel ill? rabid?) and he gave Teddy’s nose a good bite before Teddy dispatched him.  If I had not checked Teddy’s titer level — and not vaccinated him — he would have been in jeopardy. It did turn out that my other Weimeraner Scooby Doo, who is 8 years old, had a rabies titer that was nice and high in his blood test (which will probably be true of Chalupa, too, if he has had rabies shots throughout his life).  If that turns out to be true, then your vet can write a letter “To Whom it May concern” that Chalupa’s antibody titer is sufficiently high to protect against exposure to the disease — and that his immune system would be compromised by unnecessary further rabies vaccinations. That is what my vet did for me and Scooby Doo needs no further injections. I hope the same will be true for Chalupa. Please let me know.

Tracie