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I think there's a lot of interesting psychology about vaccines. In my experience most people feel better about oral or nasal vaccines because they perceive them to be less "invasive" since they don't involve any needles. I also think more people are concerned about rabies vaccines because of extensive lore about how terrible they are for people (lots of people are still afraid of the painful stomach shots nowadays even though that's not really done anymore) and lots of anecdotal talk about how hard that particular vaccine is on animals. I've especially encountered client reluctance to rabies vaccinate their animals as they get older, with many saying they didn't want to put their pets through it or suffer a reaction (which, for many clients, includes preventing the patient from being lethargic after the vaccine).I just don’t get people who are hesitant to vaccinate. Not anti-vaxxers who are against every vaccine entirely. I obviously disagree, but I know that they take a stance that any vaccine is bad. I can understand their thought process, no matter how wrong it might be. But I see people come in frequently who are hesitant to vaccinate and will reluctantly do DA2PP, but fight tooth and nail against rabies. Then they’ll do bordetella and not really care because it’s oral and not a shot. It’s like, how did you form these beliefs and misunderstanding of how vaccines work? You’ve never heard of injection site sarcomas so that’s not the reason. Your pet has never personally had a reaction to an injection or an oral/intranasal vaccine so that’s not the reason. And no matter what we do we can’t convince you that your logic is flawed. And while DA2PP is a core vaccine, Lyme is actually a more prevalent disease in my area. You’d think these people would only do the vaccines that their pet is most at risk for. But there’s no rhyme or reason, and I can’t understand that.
Was going to bring this up as well. Nobody likes the $$$ rodeo that is involved when unvaccinated animals bite someone, or worse (from a $$$ perspective) come into contact with a rabies positive animal. I'm most familiar with rabies control in TX, which is Rabies Vector Mecca, and that stuff is taken very seriously and clients will regret it if their pets aren't current.At least here, rabies is require by law and I tell people that, haha. I also remind them the fine and required quarantine protocols if they’re caught and the $30 vaccine doesn’t seem so bad...