If Only!

[Gemini]

I hope puss soon feels much better Grauntie.

Re vaccinations. My girl cats had them as kittens, but not since and have got to 18 with no major illnesses (one of them saw the vet for the first time last year, due to cystitis!) I am aware that dogs may need the protection more as they are out and about more and approach other dogs. Not as often as officially recommended though by the sound of it.
The advice for cats is annually too. We have cat sitters come to the house, so we don't need vaccinations for the cattery.

[Daisy]

GM - interesting that your BIL says the same about annual injections. There's also a lot of controversy about the Lepto4 element of the injections - dogs can get a really bad reaction to it, but from various things I've read Leptospirosis isn't a common disease and is generally treatable, so you start to wonder if the 'cure' ie the injections, is worse than the potential problem. Also like the human flu jab (and also kennel cough vaccines) there are different strains and you are only protecting against certain ones.

I used to have my dogs vaccinated every single year until we had a border collie who had recently had surgery for a ruptured spleen and the vet said not to give him the vaccination he was due for. He said he would definitely still have immunity. I was worried because it was during a foot and mouth outbreak and we couldn't walk on the Forest so the roads and paths were teeming with dogs (and unfortunately dog poo) and I was so worried he could catch something horrible.