First of all, we have never vaccinated our animals ourselves. We have recently decided we need to budget a little bit better and I had heard of people doing it on their own. From our local tractor supply its under 10$ per vaccine (we would still have to go in for rabies).

I just so frustrated pay 25.00 to a vet for a vaccine that could be so much less. And then on top of the 25.00 there is the office visit and blah, blah, blah. It's so frustrating. Sometimes I feel like veterinarians are drug pushers. Hence why we changed to a holistic vet.

Enough of my rant, what are your opinions on vaccinating on your own? Is it safe? Are the vaccines actually legit?

Alright hope to hear from ya'll soon!

The only issue with self vaccinating is most vets or kennels won't accept that as "proper" vaccination and will view the dog as not being vaccinated.

Have you looked around for low cost clinics? Humane Societies and animal services usually will do them. Or there's always the people who go to the petcos/petsmarts. Do you have that in your area? Before we stopped vaccinating, that's what we did. Much much less and you control what you want and what you don't without some BS lecture.

My vet does half price vaccines every saturday. You could always ask around, I'm sure a vet in your area does the same.

Well, thats my biggest issue: I am sick and tired of hearing the lectures from vets. I don't believe it is necessary every year especially after reading book after book about it. I just didn't know if it was actually a safe practice or not. Obviously I have to do rabies every year, but I am avoiding the others. I didn't even want lepto or bordatella for Cato..man did my vet give me an earful about that.

Our vet has a shot clinic every other Saturday. No appointment, walk in and you only pay for the shots, no office visit. Most of the vets in our area have something similar. Maybe there is one in your area?

There are plenty of clinics, I was simply inquiring. I have no problem with going to a clinic by any means, but I just wondered if anyone actually vaccinated themselves.

I know my very good friends mom does her dog.

I've done vaccines for my clients at my old job (secretly, ahaha..) and I've done Koda's bordetella myself every time I need to do it. I only do DHPP once after their puppy shots and then titer at 3 years- I did Koda's DHPP in 2009 myself and just got it titered about 2 weeks ago and it's still going strong.
I don't see any issue with it as long as you buy from a trustworthy source.

Heather, where do you get yours from?

I needed to do the kennel cough vaccine when we boarded Adobo & Biko back in January. Purchased the vaccine at Tractor Supply and saved the receipt, the kennel accepted it w/o any trouble. I do plan on doing my other vaccines as needed in the future as I've got tired of all the extra office call payments also.

I got mine from a feed store that have a really good reputation back home. I know a lot of people who buy from Tractor Supply.

I used to vacc my own dogs, but the city doesn't recognize it because they say "you can pull a label off of anything." So, to be law abiding citizens, we go to the clinic or to the vet. Our AC Shelter offers 8 dollars vaccs every monday, but since the vaccs at our new vet is only 10$ per, we chose to eat the 2 dollars and go any day of the week. lol

Geez. Wish we had prices like that out here. Our special clinics are $25 per animal when they have one. That's $125! Doing them myself we can get that number down to $40ish. I don't see how a city could not recognize that if you can prove it. Maybe I should start getting a deposition from the sister-in-law every time she stabs them, one from the store clerk, and a video of the whole event including cooler transport. Glad our rules aren't like that.

I know in california, you can do all vaccinations but rabies by yourself. We do all except rabies. Except I have been lazy and I go to a vet now. We go take her to get rabies, most license places I have seen only require rabies. I am not sure about out in Colorado.

Interesting. Most puppies that come in to the hospital with full blown parvo have gotten a full round of tractor supply dist/parvo shots. Personally I don't trust them, but i have different experiences than most I guess.

I did my own shots for my beagle and he ended up having to have another round of shots (three months later) from the vet before they would neuter him. they don't recognize the tractor supply shots as "real" shots and said the dosages aren't right. I was not too happy about him having to get revaccinated because of their policies....so from now on we will just go to the clinic I guess.

Wow I guess I won't go back to doing it myself. Thanks for the info Brooke!

Crazy. My vet doesn't have concerns with it. I think it's one of those "choke" chain things. If you do it wrong it isn't going to work.

Yeah, we will just be doing titer testing for now. I'll avoid doing it if I can, but our new vet said that the combo vaccines have been staying in their systems for about 7 years before they actually need it done again. Obviously rabies we have to do, it's Michigan law.