What Shots Do Cats Need?

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Diana Korten and I'm here with Henry today to talk about what shots your cat needs. Basically, most people will agree that your cat, when it's a kitten needs its shots, that's the distemper and the rabies package. You usually get, the kitten usually gets the first set when they're about eight weeks old, and then they get another one about three weeks after that, or twelve weeks after that, depending on the vet, and then you'll get another booster a year later. Where we get in to the controversy is with some of the other shots that, that some vets recommend. The history of the annual booster shot was basically that veterinarians started recommending them as a way of getting people to come in to see the vet to get an annual check up to have a cat have an annual check up. Having your, bringing your cat in for an annual check up is very important, getting a shot is not. Most cats, just like with people, you get that, you get your shot to fight off bacterial infections, and, and then you really don't need more of them through out your life. If you, if you're dubious about this, you can always ask your vet to do a titter test, which basically means that the vet will do a test to see if your cat is still producing the antibodies to the, the illness that it was vaccinated for. And if your cat's still producing antibodies, then clearly it does not need to have a booster vaccination. Association of feline veterinarian practitioners is currently saying about once every three years for booster shots, which is, again, a little controversial with the holistic community, but it's a lot, lot less conservative then the annual booster, which most people now are, most vets are now agreeing is really not necessary, of course you can discuss it with your vet. We should definitely talk about some of the other shots, like the feline lukemia shot, and then feline, FIV shot. The reason that I wanted to have Henry in the video with me is that Henry has FIV. I adopted him as an FIV positive cat. He acquired FIV while living as a street cat in Los Angeles. Basically, cats, the cats that get FIV are un-neutered street toms, because they get in a lot of fights. The only way for a cat to transmit FIV is through a deep bite wound. I did a lot of research about this before adopting Henry because I wanted to be sure that my other cats would be safe when I brought him in to the household. And Doctor Peterson at UC Davis in California, he is the head of the small animal veterinary research program there, and he's actually the one who discovered the FIV virus, and his recommendation was against getting the vaccination, and here's why: If your cat get vaccinated for the FIV virus and then it gets lost and it gets taken in to a shelter or a rescue center somewhere, they will do a test on that cat to see if it's FIV positive, and it will show as an FIV positive because it has had the vaccination, because the vaccination causes the cat to make antibodies to the virus, and the test for FIV tests for the presence of the antibodies. And more likely than not, that cat will be put down. So, the risk of the cat getting put down because it comes up FIV positive is a lot higher than the risk of the cat actually contracting FIV if it is neutered and living in a stable home environment."