Education and Wellness

Tails of Hope provides a bite prevention program. 

Please contact us at education@tails-of-hope.org to find out details and schedule a Bite Prevention Program.

We provide all of our adopters with valuable information on caring for their pets, as well as the necessary support to ensure a successful adoption.

We are dedicated to the physical and mental wellness of our animals. In addition to routine medical care, if an animal is ill or injured, we make sure he or she gets necessary medications, therapy or surgery. We also often invest in behaviorists who work to rehabilitate rescued animals who carry baggage from traumatic pasts.

Books & Periodicals

Tails of Hope is dedicated to helping pets live the longest, happiest lives possible. To this end, we try and pass along information that we feel will help you attain the very best for your pet. The following list of books and periodicals will hopefully be of benefit to you. They are the ones that are most frequently referred to by our volunteers and adopters. Please feel free to email us with additional titles, information and ideas.

• The Whole Dog Journal; 1-800-829-9165
• Protect Your Pet by Ann Martin
• The Nature of Animal Healing by Martin Goldstein, D.V.M.
• Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats by Richard H. Pitcairn, D.V.M., PH.D. & Susan Hubble Pitcairn
• Healthy Animal's Journal...by Christina Chambreau, D.V.M.
• Four Paws - Five Directions...Cheryl Schwartz, D.V.M.
• The Last Chance Dog (And Other True Stories of Holisitc Animal Healing) by Donna Kelleher, DVM
  
• Teach Children to be Kind to Animals

Please see our Links section for information on vaccinations and food.

 

Health Hazard of Routine Vaccination: Placing our animals at risk

"Routine" vaccination has adverse side-effects, either short or long term. With vaccines that are repeated year after year, the frequency and severity of these side-effects in our pets has increased dramatically. Most of the problems involve the immune system. After all, the immune system is what vaccines are designed to stimulate. But they do so in a very unnatural way that can overwhelm and confuse the immune system." donna starita mehan DVM

Dr. Ronald D. Schultz, Ph.D..- "Annual revaccination provides no benefit and may increase the risk for adverse reactions. The percentage of vaccinated animals (those vaccinated only as puppies) protected from clinical disease after challenge with canine distemper virus, canine parvovirus and canine adenovirus in the study was greater than 95%." Current and Future Canine and Feline Vaccination Programs. Dr. Ronald Schultz is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the School of Veterinary Medicine, UW-Madison. Schultz, R.D. - Current & Future Canine & Feline Vaccination Programs. Vet Med 3: No. 3, 233-254, 1998 more. A chart provided in the report shows immunity levels for all vaccines currently given to dogs lasting a minimum of 5 years with most lasting 7-15 years! 

Rethinking Annual Vaccinations
by Karen Caton

Consider the following: "A practice that was started many years ago and that lacks scientific validity or verification is annual revaccinations. ALMOST WITHOUT EXCEPTION THERE IS NO IMMUNILOGIC REQUIREMENT FOR ANNUAL REVACCINATION. Immunity to viruses persists for years or for the life of the animal. Successful vaccination to most bacterial pathogens produces an immunologic memory that remains for years, allowing an animal to develop a protective anamnestic (secondary) response when exposed to virulent organisms. Only the immune response to toxins (such as tetanus) requires boosters... and no toxin vaccines are currently used for dogs or cats. The practice of annual vaccination in our opinion should be considered of questionable efficacy unless it is used as a mechanism to provide an annual physical examination or is required by law (i.e. certain states require annual revaccination for rabies)."

The above statement can be found on page 205 of Current Veterinary Therapy XI, a reference published every two to three years and considered to be "the bible" for veterinary medicine. Could it be possible that we are unknowingly doing more harm to our pets than good? More and more veterinarians believe this to be true and are moving towards annual wellness exams rather than annual revaccination. Although most veterinarians feel that some degree of vaccination is needed, problems may arise from repeated exposure over a period of years.

More and more animals are suffering from adverse reactions to vaccinations. These adverse reactions can include lethargy, fever, stiffness, sore joints, abdominal tenderness, anaphylactic shock (an allergic reaction that causes swelling of critical airways which can result in death within minutes), liver and kidney problems and more .(1) If an animal has a preexisting health problem, vaccinations can expedite a decline in health of that animal as they are known to depress the immune system. Many animals with chronic problems fail to improve or respond to traditional treatment. The homeopathic community refers to these adverse reactions as "vaccinosis", which broadly means the vaccinations interfere with the body's own ability to heal itself.

Recent studies have begun to link several chronic health problems to vaccines. There is epidemiologic evidence linking feline leukemia and rabies vaccines to sarcomas at the site of injection. These soft tissue tumors are usually malignant and quite aggressive and most often fatal. Sarcomas may occur as often as I in l000.(2),(3) Skin problems such as hair loss, lesions, ulcers, indurations (hard lumps) at and near the injection sites have been associated with some rabies vaccines. 4 Typically these problems are treated with long-term usage of steroids and/or surgical removal. Though the risk of these types of adverse reactions may not be at epidemic proportions, it is certainly real enough to warrant reexamination of traditional vaccination practices.

We are not trying to create an alarmist attitude about this situation, but we would hope that readers will at least start asking questions about your pets health care. All too often, the best we do is the usual "knee jerk" response, only because it is what we've been doing for years. As a result of these findings, along with the recommendations of our shelter veterinarian Dr. Linda East, and some first hand experiences with adverse reactions of shelter cats, we at Cat Care Society have significantly modified our own vaccination procedures. We strongly encourage our adopters, as well as supporters, to start asking questions before automatically agreeing to any procedure or practice that concerns your pets health.

When was the last time you had your "baby' shots? Paws for thought.

References:

(!) W. Jean Dodds, D.V.M., "More Bumps On The Vaccine Road", proceedings of AHVMA Annual Conference, 1994.

(2) JAVMA, Vol.207, No.4, 8/15/95 - "Are We Vaccinating Too Much?"

(3) JAVMA, Vol.202, No.8, 4/15/93 - "Postvaccination Sarcomas In Cats"

(4) W. Jean Dodds, D.V.M., "Vaccine Safety and Efficacy Revisited: Autoimmune and Allergic Diseases On The Rise", Veterinary Forum. May 1993.

 

(Also see "Vaccines Linked To Increased Numbers Of Tumors In Cats" by Paige G. Garnett, Care Animal Hospital)