Cat Vaccinations

Cat vaccinations are critical to the well-being of your cat and to help protect them from potentially deadly infectious diseases. We recommend:

• Giving core cat vaccinations which include panleukopenia, rhinotracheitis, calicivirus and rabies. These core vaccines are recommended for all cats and kittens. A feline leukemia cat vaccination may also be recommended.

• Starting a kitten vaccination schedule between 6 and 9 weeks of age to begin proper lifelong protection.

• Giving two physical examinations with kitten vaccinations every 3 weeks thereafter. This time interval allows for maximum immune response and therefore, the best protection.

• Boostering cats one year after the kitten vaccinations.

• Performing cat vaccinations thereafter every 1 to 3 years (or as recommended by your VCA veterinarian) depending on your cats lifestyle and risk factors

There are several non-core cat vaccinations available for protection against diseases such as FeLV, FIV, FIP, chlamydiosis, and bordetellosis in cats. These cat vaccinations are recommended only in special circumstances, dependent on the exposure risk of an individual cat to the particular infectious disease.

Although reactions and side effects of cat vaccinations are possible, they are rare. The very small risk of a vaccine reaction is greatly outweighed by the benefit of protection against serious disease. Call us or come in for more information on proper vaccination for your cat. Ask about our Best Care Little Bundles program which covers kitten vaccinations and other important healthcare items for your kitten.

Cat Vaccine Recommendations

– Provided by VetStreet.com

“What vaccines should my cat get?” This is a question veterinarians hear on a fairly regular basis. Because of advances in science and vaccine technology, and a growing body of information about infectious diseases, the answer you may have gotten 15 years ago is different from the answer you will get today.

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Council on Biologic and Therapeutic Agents, “medical decisions concerning vaccine selection and administration protocols are among the most complicated medical decisions facing veterinarians today.” Here’s why:

“The reasons are numerous and include, but are not necessarily limited to,

• continual changes in our understanding of the immune system

• changes in local/regional population susceptibilities to various diseases

• increased animal valuation with related liabilities

• longer animal life expectancies, and

• improved medical record systems, which allows for better tracking of the short, medium, and long-term effects of vaccine use/administration”

Other contributing factors that affect a veterinarian’s decision as to whether any given cat should receive a vaccine include:

• veterinary medicine’s constantly evolving understanding of infectious diseases,

• veterinarians’ concerns regarding the regulations behind vaccines (licensing, labeling, etc.), and

• veterinarians’ awareness of the risks associated with vaccines.

Much has been made of the risks of vaccination in recent years. Unfortunately, this debate has fueled a largely unwarranted backlash against vaccinations in general, which protect cats from dangerous (and sometimes fatal) diseases while also protecting humans from diseases (such as rabies) that are transmissible across species.

In light of the oft-politicized and sometimes emotionally charged discussion of vaccination, it’s crucial to remember that vaccines have played a significant role in enabling both humans and animals to live longer and healthier lives in a world rife with microbial pathogens.

Nonetheless, not all vaccines are appropriate for all pets. This is why a thorough evaluation of each individual patient’s potential for disease exposure and the risks/benefits associated with his vaccination are fundamental to deciding whether a pet gets vaccinated. Vaccination decisions should always be made in consultation with a veterinarian so they can be tailored to meet a cat’s individual needs.

According to the American Association of Feline Practitioners’ vaccination guidelines, the following vaccines are considered “core” (indispensable) vaccines for all cats in the United States:

• Rabies virus

• Panleukopenia virus (FPV)

• Feline herpesvirus-1 (FHV-1)

• Feline calicivirus (FCV)

For kittens, the rabies vaccine should be administered as a single dose as early as 8 to 12 weeks of age (depending on vaccine type and label recommendations). For adults receiving an initial rabies vaccine, one dose is considered protective. For all cats, a second dose one year after the initial vaccine is recommended. Following that, the vaccine should be administered every one to three years, depending on the product’s labeling.

The panleukopenia virus (FPV), feline herpesvirus-1 (FHV-1), and feline calicivirus (FCV) vaccines are typically administered as a combination vaccine according to the following schedule: All kittens should receive two vaccinations three to four weeks apart between the ages of 6 and 16 weeks. Should the initial vaccination take place after 16 weeks, two vaccines three to four weeks apart are recommended. All kittens should receive a booster one year after vaccination and then at intervals of every three years.

The following vaccines are considered “non-core,” which is to say they are optional vaccines that cats can benefit from based on their risk for exposure to the diseases in question:

• Feline leukemia virus (FeLV)

• Feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV)

• Feline chlamydiosis

• Bordetella

The American Association of Feline Practitioners has categorized another group of vaccines as “not generally recommended.” This categorization does not mean that the vaccines are bad or dangerous. This designation simply means that widespread use of the vaccine is not currently recommended for pet cats. They are:

• Feline infectious peritonitis (FIP)

• Feline giardia (no longer available as of this writing)

Vaccination remains one of the most important services your veterinarian offers, and although vaccination is a routine procedure, it should not be taken for granted. It also allows a regular opportunity for your veterinarian to perform a physical examination, which is very important for keeping your cat healthy. Protecting patients is your veterinarian’s primary goal, and developing an appropriate vaccine protocol for your pet is as important as any other area of medicine.

For more information on all these vaccines and the diseases they target, reference each of these vaccine’s individual discussions.

References

American Association of Feline Practitioners 2006 Feline Vaccination Guidelines

AVMA Vaccination Principles

 

Bilingualism can help your brain

Why Speaking Another Language in the Classroom is a Good Thing

• by Edwina Duenas, February 25, 2014

It wasn’t too long ago that bilingual education was essentially banned from the classroom in California thanks to Proposition 227. Flash forward 15 years, and you’ll find that bilingual education is now the norm — well, for one city.

As reported in SFGate, San Francisco has quickly become the model for bilingual education over the last decade. Nearly 30 percent of the city’s English language learners are enrolled in bilingual education programs, with promising results. Recent studies by Stanford University show that these students are equally as proficient in their academics as ELL students enrolled in English-only programs.

These kinds of results clearly show that supporting a student’s native language is not a “bad” thing in the least. Through bilingual programs, these students get the support they need to begin learning, while also building on their English language skills at a comfortable pace.

Not all school districts would agree, however. Most cities aren’t as diverse as San Francisco, and don’t have as high of a need to support bilingual education and spend money building up resources. Some school administrations across the country have even tried “banning” students from speaking their native language altogether.

Thankfully, the trend in many school districts now is to provide a bilingual or language-immersion education option if the resources are available, and for good reason. Speaking another language in the classroom can only help students, and even lessen the feeling of alienation ELL learners may feel with academic subjects.

As Care2 writer Steve Williams notes, there are a number of reasons why learning a second, third, or even fourth language can improve the quality of your life. Students enrolled in immersion programs, for example, become proficient in two languages at the same time. This skill can be transferred into the professional world further down the road, and if students continue their courses, they’ll be at an advantage to their peers. Additionally, bilingualism can help brain growth, memory and multitasking because of the linguistic idiosyncrasies of the new language.

Currently, San Francisco Unified School District has more than 5,000 students enrolled in bilingual programs. The most popular languages include English and Cantonese, Spanish, Mandarin and Korean. Whether they start off as ELL students or English-only, if enrolled by kindergarten, these students become proficient in their new language by middle school.

Yet, despite these benefits, there just isn’t enough support or interest for bilingual education to become the norm across the state. There are currently no efforts to rescind Prop. 227, although school districts have more flexibility than before the bill first passed. Even so, San Francisco can remain a model for what an ideal learning environment could be, and set an example for how bilingualism can be beneficial to all.