Skipping Your Dog’s Vaccinations Puts Pets At Risk, Warn Experts: Study Reveals The Dangers Of Anti-Vax Pet Parents

The data shows over 66% of the whole population of the United States own a pet. Out of this 65.1 Million people own a dog. This means dogs are a huge part of our family. Every average American household chooses to adopt a dog and in many cases more than one.

Usually, they are vaccinated and looked for ulterior diseases but there is a huge percentage of people who don’t vaccinate their dogs. Alarmingly, a recent study confirms this notion. The prevalence, politicization, and health policy consequences of canine vaccine hesitancy, conducted by Matt Motta and Gabriella Motta on behalf of Boston University’s School of Public Health found that a large amount of pet owners are hesitant about administering vaccine shots to their pets.

Dog Vaccination Skipping Puts Pets At Risk: Expert Warning

Consisting of over 2200 individuals, the group collaborated with YouGov and came to know about this increased number in Canine Vaccine Hesitancy. Not all concerns are similar and include a wide range of reasons. The researchers uncovered, that “ a large minority of dog owners consider vaccines administered to dogs to be unsafe (37%), ineffective (22%), and/or unnecessary (30%). A slight majority of dog owners (53%) endorse at least one of these three positions.”

When asked about the data, the lead author of the study admitted being appalled by the approach pet parents were taking when it came to their indoor pets. Especially when they hang around kids, the elderly, and other immuno-compromised habitants of the house. It is disturbing to know that Zoonotic diseases; diseases spread from animals to humans are at an all-time high. But isn’t vaccinating pets optional?

Many believe that the choice of vaccinating or not vaccinating is completely personal. Vets are denying this stance vehemently. Mr.Motta the lead researcher of the study believes, “If there are more unvaccinated dogs out there, the risk of disease transmission grows.” The list includes a lot of diseases but is topped by Rabies. Though cases of rabies have decreased in the U.S. only recently was a Florida Man and a dog bitten by a rabid otter. Rabies is highly deadly because it often manifests covertly. This means the pet may not even show symptoms for the initial 45 days. 

Rabies attacks the nervous system and the virus renders the host completely helpless. Its morbidity aggravates because once you are bitten you should seek help immediately. After a certain time passes, the damage is irreversible. In fact,  Dr. Karsten Hueffer who specializes in the study of rabies aggression states, “This virus can reprogram a dog’s behavior so it loses fear, becomes aggressive, and bites, which allows the virus to spread through the dog’s saliva.” Further, as a part of the study, they discovered, “when we injected this small piece of the virus glycoprotein into the brain of mice, the mice started running around much more than mice that got a control injection. Such a behavior can be seen in rabies-infected animals as well.” 

When caring about our pets, we don’t need them to suffer either and dogs are not like us. It can increase the longevity of your dog and save it from incurring various additional costs that could come up if it gets sick. 

Many believe that cleaning it frequently could do all the magic but dogs are pretty agile and can pick up anything from anywhere. In some counties, it is also strictly against the law to bring up an unvaccinated pet.

Many vets vouch that getting shots could decrease many canine ailments. For the safety of your family, your pets, and others, it is imperative that you get your pets vaccinated before there is no going back.