Just wanted to share my vaccine experience from yesterday here in
Germany...they vaccinate them here against Rabies, Distemper and Kennel
Cough.  My vet used the vaccines from Pfizer (good German company!)
called Vanguard 7 and Enduracell T.  I see from their medical passes
that in the past, they've been vaccinated with a combo from Virbac,
another German company (I adopted them last year).
 
In any case, there was no pretreating and no post wait.  I asked him if
I needed to wait to make sure there were no reactions like I've done in
the US and he said no, just call our cell phone if there's a problem, and
gave me his card with that number on it.  I don't know enough German yet
to ask how often there's a problem.
 
In any case, there were no problems, thankfully!  Just wanted to share
that it doesn't seem to be as big of a deal as in the US.
 
Question - when I was scruffing the girl, he nicked me with the needle
just a tiny bit and there will a teeny tiny bit of blood.  He said he
pokes himself all the time and there's nothing to worry about.  The
Rabies vaccine here isn't live, but the distemper one is.  Can a tiny
bit of the distemper virus hurt a human, if any of it was on the tip of
the needle?
 
Emily in Germany
[Posted in FML issue 4632]