I received a comment from a rancher in South Texas snake country that was cause for concern related to our recent posts on the rattlesnake vaccine issue. His Labrador Retriever was bitten last week and reacted badly and ended up in the vet clinic for some pretty extensive treatment.
The concern part was that this dog had been vaccinated. The real problem was that she had not received the recommended boosters for dogs living in year round snake country.
Apparently the staff at the local vet clinic was unaware of the need for additional boosters.
Frankly, this is a little disconcerting. You would think that they would have all the scoop on a product that they administer to their clientele. It got me thinking about how we learn about different products as veterinarians.
I've seen the Redrock Biologics booth at a number of veterinary conferences and I've discussed the vaccine and its efficacy with them, in person. I never knew until I got on their web site that there were so many nuances to the
vaccine protocol. I doubt if they have sales people calling on individual veterinary hospitals. They seem to be too small an outfit to have a field sales force.
In many cases, products like this are handled by a distributor and in most cases the distributor does have a sales representative that calls on the individual veterinary clinic. It often falls on these folks to detail the various products that they sell.
I used to look forward to visits from most of the sales reps that called on my clinic. They were a valuable source of information on new drugs and equipment. Some of them brought doughnuts, too. I spent most of my time and money with those guys and gals.
But, someone dropped the ball, here. It really shouldn't be up to the client to figure these things out. The responsibility ultimately rests with the Doctor that provides the treatment. I can sympathize with the hospital staff, too. I mean after all, I've been advocating the use of this vaccine for over a year and I only learned the full scoop recently.
The other interesting part of this story is that this dog had taken
aversion training about three years ago. Her owner reported that she had no interest in snakes, up until now. I guess the message here is that a refresher course in snake aversion training might be in order, too. I'll look into that.
The good news is that Della the Lab is going to be OK. Her owner has also made sure that the vet clinic is aware of the need for additional boosters every six months. If you know anyone in snake country you might want to refer them to our discussion. It could save a life.