What We Do for Vaccinations of Dogs and Horses at Home
Dogs
– Spring- We give a five way shot and a bordetella nasal spray every year from valleyvetsupply.com (you can get every vaccine from there except rabies) and
Every 3 years, a vet administered rabies shot from Petsmart or Tractor Supply at their inexpensive clinics.
Horses
1. Spring we give 4 way EWT-WN (Eastern Equine Encephalitis, Western Equine Encephalitis, Tetanus, West Nile Virus) and Flu/rhino. Vet will need to come and give rabies, clean sheath (if you don’t know how to do yourself, if you do, and get teeth done. If you know how to clean sheathes, do it while they are sedated from the vet doing the teeth floating.
2. Fall they get flu-rhino (influenza and Equine Herpesvirus 1/4) such as Fluvac Innovator EHV-4/1 (Rhino + Flu) Equine Vaccine and strangles (a/k/a strepvax) vaccine such as Strepvax II (Strangles) Equine Vaccine
3. Deworm at least every spring and fall with Equimax for older horses and Quest+ for the others. We deworm again with generic ivermectin in June and December for horses that are boarded.
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Discussion
For the last ten years we have vaccinated our own kennel of canines using a five way shot and a bordetella nasal spray from Jeffers or Valley Vet, prices are less than $15 per dog as of 2021. We started doing our horses for the last ten or more years, and horses are about $50 in spring and fall in 20206.
Our vet says we over vaccinate animals so she was recommending every three years for dogs. We do this annually, if have to show evidence of current vaccinations for boarding of the dogs, otherwise every three years, per our veterinarian. Obviously, rabies has to be done every three years by your veterinarian, so we use Tractor Supply or PetCo for dogs, which has a cheap clinic one day a week, for about $15 per dog. However, after our breeder friend who had pups die from Lepto, we have been following the annual regime, as we hunt a lot of different places and we don’t want to take any risks with under-vaccinating. We have tried the rattlesnake and giardia vaccines in the past for our dogs as well, but our vet doesn’t believe that they work, either in from seeing the results in his practice or in the research studies, so we stopped doing them when he stopped recommending them at the clinic.
We do the dogs in the spring each year, along with doing our horses. The fall shots for the horses requires rabies, so we have the vet do this shot for rabies together with their teeth floating and sheath cleaning for the geldings, but Golden Vet Clinic has retired and we preferred their far more inexpensive hand floating, which we think is still better and doesn’t require sedation.
You should only attempt DIY vaccinations, if you are trained in administering the relatively simple under the skin (subcutaneous) shots in dogs or IM shots in horses. Adapted from my Bird Dog Doc’s recommendations (always consult with your veterinarian before selecting a vaccination schedule). This article is editorial in nature, and is not intended as veterinary advice. Readers should seek professional veterinary advice for any health decisions involving their pets.
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Horses that are difficult to shoe, use Dorm versus Ace:
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