Thread: Vaccination and Re-Vaccination - your thoughts?

We always used to let our cats' boosters lapse. They were healthy moggies, uninsured, and never went into a cattery. They had free access to the outdoors so perhaps we were taking a risk there. But our vet at the time said don't bother with the boosters, they're healthy, they don't roam, there's no need. Even so, I always felt I was 'getting away with it' rather, and really if I was being properly responsible I ought to keep the boosters up to date.

Now, when I got my rescue cat Humph a few months back, I had to prove to the cat shelter that my existing moggy Barney was fully vaccinated. So I got him re-vacced after a 6-year lapse. Then the kittens came and they were fully vacced, of course. I've insured them all now so I will have to keep them boosted.

Funny though, that Barney had his first bout of illness recently - after being re-vaccinated! It was quite serious too - a severe throat infection so that he couldnt eat and kept trying to be sick. He lost weight and he's old, at least 16, so we thought it might be a tumour, we thought oh no, here we go again, it's a credit card and shovel day. But he amazed us all by making a complete recovery in about 4 days. The vet even said he has perfectly normal kidney function, which is surprising for an elderly moggy.

I do wonder though why he got this illness - perhaps the 3 new cats in the house brought it in? But none of them were ill. Maybe it would have been a whole lot worse had they not been vaccinated.