Pet Vaccination Essentials: What Every Pet Parent Needs to Know with Dr. Jeff Grognet

In this episode of Starlight Pet Talk, host Amy Castro interviews Dr. Jeff Grognet, a practicing veterinarian and author, about vaccinations for pets. They discuss the difference between core and non-core vaccines, the risks of over-vaccination, and the potential side effects of vaccines. Dr. Grognet emphasizes the importance of considering the risk of the disease and the age of the pet when deciding on a vaccination schedule. He also mentions alternative options such as homeopathic nosodes. The conversation concludes with advice on how to have conversations with veterinarians about vaccination decisions.

Takeaways

• Core vaccines are considered essential for all pets, while non-core vaccines are optional and depend on the pet's risk and exposure.
• Vaccines can have potential side effects, including allergic reactions, tumors, and immune system problems.
• The effectiveness of vaccines varies, and some may not provide significant protection against certain diseases.
• Consider the risk of the disease, the age of the pet, and individual circumstances when deciding on a vaccination schedule.
• Alternative options, such as homeopathic nosodes, can be considered as an alternative to traditional vaccines.
• And more! 

Learn more about Dr. Jeff, his work,  and courses: www.newearthvet.com

 Big changes are coming soon to Starlight Pet Talk! 🚀 We’re excited to share that we're evolving to bring you even more engaging content and fresh perspectives. Stay tuned for new features and exciting updates that will enhance your listening experience. We can’t wait to reveal what’s next—keep an eye out for more details! 

Transcript

Amy Castro (00:00.567)
because it's such a confusing thing for pet parents and there's so much scuttlebutt out there about it that I think it kind of makes things worse for people.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (00:10.004)
Well, the other side figures everything they're saying is true, so they don't call it scuttlebutt.

Amy Castro (00:14.327)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right, so let's go ahead. Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk. I'm your host, Amy Castro. And today we're going to be talking about vaccinations for your pets. And my guest, who was actually a guest very early on in the show, Dr. Jeff Grognet, is a practicing veterinarian and an award winning author. With over 40 years in practice, he's been actively teaching for 35 years and has taught over 42 ,000 students.

wanting to create veterinary assisting careers. He has developed courses on pet first aid, behavior and training, as well as holistic therapy. Dr. Jeff has a passion to teach owners how they can better care for their pets from a holistic standpoint. He focuses on nutrition, minimizing vaccines and reducing toxin exposure. So Dr. Jeff, thank you and welcome back to the show.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (01:07.732)
Thank you very much, Amy. It's great to be here. Great to get the message out.

Amy Castro (01:12.119)
Yeah, definitely. And I obviously I get your emails. And so I've seen all the information and the classes that you've been having about vaccines. And I thought this is going to be a perfect topic for a perfect expert to help us kind of get some things straight, because I think pet parents are very confused and kind of don't know who to believe when it comes to what our you know, what our pets need from the standpoint of vaccinations. So one of the things.

One of the things that has come up is the idea, and I had never heard the term before except for in the past couple of years is, you know, core vaccines versus non -core vaccines. What's the, what does that mean?

Dr. Jeff Grognet (01:53.524)
Okay, that sort of moniker for the vaccines came out when they developed vaccine guidelines. And so core vaccines are the ones that are considered the life -threatening, quote, common diseases that, in this case, cats and dogs can suffer from. And so the core vaccines, the guidelines suggest that they should be done in all cats and dogs. The non -core vaccines, differently, are ones that are

Amy Castro (02:00.535)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (02:22.996)
You can call them optional. And what they say with those is that it depends on the risk and the exposure and what the pet is going to be exposed to, as in what they may come down with. The definition of core and non -core is strictly a conventional mechanism. And that is just how they break down the vaccines. And there's also sometimes even a little bit of...

confusion on what I'll call the conventional side labels vaccines as. Because, for example, what happened was that in California all of a sudden they said that, wow, leptospirosis should be a core vaccine. And with that particular thing it was like, we should be doing that. And so that became a problem. Just gonna get rid of some noise here.

Amy Castro (03:16.631)
Okay. yeah, I was just going to say.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (03:25.684)
Sorry about that. That will, that will, is, is the fan will stop in a moment. We can take, I'm in, if you haven't figured this out, I'm in an RV and that was the furnace, that was the furnace coming on. It's like, I forgot to turn that off too. And so the fan, no, it's actually not too bad.

Amy Castro (03:27.799)
That's okay. Is there something else that's running?

Amy Castro (03:34.743)
Okay, great.

Amy Castro (03:42.327)
That's kind of what I figured.

Amy Castro (03:49.483)
that's okay. Is it chilly up there?

Dr. Jeff Grognet (03:55.86)
So we're doing pretty good here. But the thing is when you have the furnace set at a certain number, it has this ambition to keep things warm for you. And so that's what happened. And so this will be stopping.

Amy Castro (03:56.759)
okay.

Amy Castro (04:05.687)
Yes, it does. Okay. Great.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (04:23.7)
So I can go back, I don't know exactly where to start, Amy.

Amy Castro (04:28.087)
Okay, great.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (04:29.332)
So we'll do that as soon as this disappears.

Amy Castro (04:34.007)
That sounds good.

Amy Castro (04:38.519)
Yeah, the other day I had the lawn guy outside my window and then one of the other days I was recording, my neighbor decided to, it's like you can't call your neighbor and say, hey, do you think you could not mow for an hour? Because I'm in the middle of recording a podcast. It's like life must go on, you know? Okay.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (04:51.988)
there we go. Yesterday I was doing a recording and I had it, I'm just sitting over on the table with a window behind me and all of a sudden a couple of them said, we just saw a tree come down. Yeah, because they're taking the trees down. Okay, so here we go. There's also some confusion on what should be labeled as a core and an on -core vaccine. And for example,

Amy Castro (05:07.159)
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (05:19.764)
a little while ago in California, they put leptospirosis as a core vaccine in some areas because they were seeing more cases. So because of that, all of a sudden, lepto became a core vaccine according to those veterinarians in that area. This is not something that is regulated. It's something that veterinarians will sort of come up with, I'll call it by themselves. And what it does is it creates

The idea of calling it core creates an urgency that you should get that vaccine done. It doesn't change the facts of the problems with vaccines, how often you really should do them, that type of thing. But it is used as a moniker for saying, these are the important ones and we've got to do them on this regular schedule conventionally. Okay.

Amy Castro (05:55.511)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (06:02.743)
Okay.

Amy Castro (06:11.447)
Okay, got it. And so, you know, for years and years, it was, you know, every year you go to your vet and every year you get this barrage of vaccines and you don't really, you know, seems like nobody ever really questioned it. But I think and obviously you would know better than I do that this issue is coming up because we're actually have we actually been finding that we are over vaccinating our pets and that there are risks associated with that. What what?

kind of risks to our pet's face when we over -vaccinate.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (06:43.348)
Yeah, well, I wouldn't even call it over vaccinate. I'll just call it vaccinating because as soon as you say over vaccinate, then it's kind of, well, what do you mean by that? No, it's just vaccinations can cause problems. And the most, the one that's recognized universally, of course, is allergic reactions. You give an injection of a vaccine and they can have a life -threatening reaction. I always think of it as in the

Amy Castro (06:50.135)
Okay.

Amy Castro (07:00.407)
Okay.

Amy Castro (07:06.679)
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (07:12.82)
you know, the 10 -year -old kid who gets a peanut and they have an allergy and then they end up going to hospital. They can have those life -threatening reactions. The most common allergic reactions are the ones where the face swells up and so the muzzle gets really thick, the eyelids swell, the ears get thickened. And in those cases, it's like, okay, we've got an allergic reaction going on here. And then another one they can have.

Amy Castro (07:19.767)
Right.

Amy Castro (07:33.047)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (07:41.044)
12 hours later, 24 hours later, is hives. So they can have little bumps all over their body, which are very itchy. And so that's the allergic reaction. That is the thing that is recognized by all veterinarians as in, that is a direct vaccine reaction. The other ones that occur are ones that occur delayed. And the one that came to the forefront back in the 1990s,

Amy Castro (08:07.223)
Mm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (08:10.132)
was the one is called a feline fibrosarcoma is a tumor that occurs at the site of an injection in cats. Now that used to be called a vaccine associated feline fibrosarcoma, but what they found is that is due to any injection. You could have an injection of antibiotics, steroids, program flee stuff, and even microchips. They can stimulate a growth of a tumor in cats.

Amy Castro (08:19.351)
Hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (08:39.572)
say, okay, so that's not a direct vaccine effect, but it's an effect of the injection of the vaccine, if you follow that for me, Amy. Okay, so that's that what that cancer in cats, that was the thing that changed our whole thinking of, gee, vaccines are safe and effective versus, no, vaccines are causing a little bit of a problem here. Okay, so that's the thing.

Amy Castro (08:47.671)
Okay. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (09:05.684)
That actually, that was the thing that changed the tide in vaccines for real. The other things that we see, we can see hemolytic anemia in dogs. That's where they start destroying their own red blood cells because their immune system's kind of messed up. We can also see bone inflammation. It's called hypertrophic osteodystrophy. It's where they get bone changes on their, I call it the fingers. And again, that's in dogs as well.

Amy Castro (09:22.071)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (09:33.428)
But the other two things, and this is what's really pushed by holistic practitioners, is that there's two diseases that are rampant and they're really causing problems. And certainly most holistic vets would say, yep, vaccines have a role in this. And the two are allergies, which have so many dogs suffering from and generating huge bills because of medications that are used for that too. And the other one is cancer.

We're seeing so much cancer now compared to when I graduated. The difference is night and day. And that's just in my time as a veterinarian. And so because of that, yeah, I think we have to sort of rethink our whole strategy on vaccination.

Amy Castro (10:09.399)
Hmm.

Amy Castro (10:20.727)
Yeah, yeah, and so how does, you know, how do we in general and then maybe get into the specifics for individual pets, but how does one find that balance between protecting my pets from the obvious dangers and then not over vaccinating and figuring out what's the right schedule and for us to follow?

Dr. Jeff Grognet (10:40.756)
Yeah, that's about a two -day webinar that I could do for you, Amy. But this is, okay, first thing is, here's a simple one. It's based on the risk of the disease. And so let's take two. You've got an indoor cat. Feline leukemia is only passed on from one infected cat to another when they have a fight.

Amy Castro (10:45.759)
I'm quite sure.

Amy Castro (10:56.087)
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (11:08.116)
An indoor cat does not need the vaccine for feline leukemia. That's real simple. When you have a dog and you're worried about Lyme disease, well, you've now got a four pound Yorkie that lives in your apartment with you and you go out with it under your arm, put it down on a little bit of grass outside your apartment building, pee some poops, pick the dog up, go back in.

Amy Castro (11:12.855)
Got it.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (11:34.228)
Lyme disease is not a threat. That dog is not going to pick up a tick and get Lyme disease doing on in his world, right? So you have to look at the risk from that standpoint. The other side is, and this is what a lot of people don't even talk about, is that as you have animals that age, and what I'm talking about is puppy and kitten hood versus three years old, say. Distemper in

Amy Castro (11:41.783)
Right.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (12:02.9)
in dogs and also parvo are puppy hood diseases. If you give parvo to an older dog, they will usually survive it. They do quite well. In the same way, cats with panleukopenia, which is stu - stupally called distemper, but it's also parvo virus, which if everything is really get complicated on that one. But the point is feline panleukopenia is a kitten hood disease. If you give that to an adult cat,

Amy Castro (12:14.103)
Hmm.

Amy Castro (12:26.679)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (12:32.5)
Yeah, they might get a bit of vomiting, might get a bit of diarrhea, but it's well known that if you have a pregnant cat, a queen that's pregnant, and they pick up panleukopenia during pregnancy, they will end up with birth defects in the kittens. They end up with this really wild nervous problem called cerebellar hypoplasia. And so the point is they survive the infection just fine.

Amy Castro (12:56.567)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (13:01.588)
Right? So the big thing is that as they start to age, their immunity to the diseases gets so much better. And so even with the core vaccines, it's like, if you have a 10 -year -old dog or cat, they don't need the core vaccines anymore. They're not going to die from it. They're not kittens. They're not puppies. Right? So there's a huge difference there. But the other side is, and this is the thing that's really come to light, is the effectiveness of the vaccines.

Amy Castro (13:02.103)
All right.

Amy Castro (13:23.063)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (13:32.084)
And a great example would be dogs coronavirus vaccine. And coronavirus supposedly causes a little bit of vomiting, diarrhea, that type of thing. When they did the studies on the vaccine that's available, what they found is that they couldn't actually create disease with the coronavirus virus in the control group. So therefore the vaccine didn't prevent anything from happening.

Okay, and so the case is that the studies kind of show that, well, what's it protecting against? Nothing. It's not needed. Okay, and then when we get into the leptosporosis vaccines, there's a lot of concern on that one. And two things, one is that quite often it doesn't produce immunity to the leptosporosis strain that the dogs are exposed to. But the other side is Lepto,

and also Lyme in dogs are your most reactive vaccines causing problems. In cats, it's the feline leukemia one that causes a lot of the problems. Okay, so as you can see, we have to start, we have to look at each individual vaccine. It's not fair to label every vaccine as causing huge problems. There's specific ones that do cause some real issues. Some of them don't.

Amy Castro (14:41.385)
Mm.

Amy Castro (14:52.471)
Right.

Amy Castro (14:58.391)
Yeah.

So when, when a pet owner, cause you know, generally I think people don't do a good job of asking questions when they go to the vet, they go to the vet, the, you know, and there's kind of two sides of it, right? There's the person that the vet says, you know, your fluffy is due for X, Y, Z, and you get it all done. And then you get the people on the other end and, you know, oftentimes it's economic reasons that they say, well, you know, I can't do all that. What, you know, or, or I don't want to do any of it because my cat doesn't go outside. So.

You had mentioned the idea of your living situation being a major factor in deciding what vaccines you need. What other things should I, I mean, and then age of the pet, obviously that's gonna play in. Are there other factors that I should consider before making those decisions?

Dr. Jeff Grognet (15:36.532)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (15:45.652)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you have to, this is where you have to look at each of the diseases. Generally, most dogs can get away, and this is dog land right now, most dogs you can get away with not giving any of the non -core vaccines because of lack of efficacy and also concerns with reactions to it. The problems with a lot of the vaccines is they don't work that well.

Amy Castro (16:00.151)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (16:15.796)
And they're, but the best example is Lyme disease. Over 95 % of dogs, when they're given Lyme disease, they will just brush it off. You won't even know that they had an infection. Okay, they might have a day where there's a little bit off, but otherwise, no, they don't have a problem there. They end up just getting rid of it. And like I say, most times you wouldn't even know it's Lyme disease. There's a very small subset.

Amy Castro (16:35.415)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (16:44.756)
And this is what's really advertised in the veterinary world that they can suffer from something called Lyme nephritis. It's a kidney infection due to, or should I say, kidney inflammation due to Lyme disease. And the kicker with it is it's really the immune system of that particular dog causing a problem in reaction to the Lyme disease. But you also see the same thing happening if you vaccinate a dog. You can get Lyme nephritis from that.

So it doesn't have to be the pure, the bug itself. So you have to look at all those aspects as in, gee, is it really worth it? Should we be doing that? In Catland, there is a vaccine available, and I just want to throw this one out right now, for FIP, it's feline infectious peritonitis, which is a coronavirus. And the vaccine has been proven to not work.

And if you look up the American Association of Feline Practitioners vaccination guidelines, it will say in there, vaccination for FIP is not recommended. That's the stuff that we should be following. And that is in the vaccine guidelines, which are created by the veterinarians that know what's going on.

Amy Castro (17:54.135)
Hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (18:03.924)
But the real big thing about this, very simply, Amy, is we have to look at how long vaccines last. And the pioneering work was done back in the 1970s by a Dr. Ron Schultz. And what he did, he was a veterinarian, of course, and he had this concept of why don't we vaccinate dogs once? And I'm talking core vaccines here.

Amy Castro (18:03.991)
All right.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (18:33.492)
So distemper parvo, you vaccinate them once and then you check them a month later to find out did they respond to the vaccine. You do it tighter. And if you find that they have produced an immune response, that immune response means that the immune system is activated. We have memory cells in there which persists for the lifetime of the dog. We do not need to do another vaccination, period.

Amy Castro (18:34.679)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (18:43.959)
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (19:02.228)
The same concept applies in cats with panleukopenia. Not so much with the respiratory viruses because that's kind of like you and me with the flu virus, right? And that is it's changing all the time. So it's very difficult to have 100 % immunity to the feline respiratory infections such as rhino and caliche. But that's the fate of that one. You're never gonna have 100 % on it because you can't...

vaccinate for every strain that's out there in the world. And the other thing is cat and dog vaccines never change. They don't update the strains in the vaccines from year to year, like they do with the human flu vaccine or the COVID vaccine or anything like that. Okay. So there's static vaccines. They were implemented, created decades ago. Okay. But.

Amy Castro (19:35.063)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (19:52.183)
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (20:00.02)
The main thing is we've got them lasting longer. We don't need to vaccinate every year or every three years.

Amy Castro (20:00.279)
So.

Amy Castro (20:08.471)
Well, and that actually brings up a question that I hadn't thought about before is the whole idea of, you know, what is the deal with these one year like rabies is one that is required in our communities here in Texas, even though there are very few cases of rabies that are out there. But obviously, you know, when you get into situations where it's a disease that can transfer to humans, I guess that makes it a much bigger deal.

But it used to be you got a rabies vaccine every year and then it's like, well, if you got it for one year, or you got it one year and then you get the booster the year next, now you can go three years. But is it the same vaccine? Is it a different vaccine or is it all just hooey?

Dr. Jeff Grognet (20:48.244)
It is the same vaccine completely. The reason for the one, the getting it done as a puppy or kitten and then doing it a year later and then moving to a three year schedule is because that is how the vaccine was tested, period. Okay, so the vaccine manufactured tested it that way. And what they said is that, okay, based on a three year interval,

Amy Castro (20:52.311)
Okay.

Amy Castro (21:06.903)
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (21:17.236)
We have good protection, so therefore we can say it should be done every three years. It provides what they call 85 % protection. It's not 100%, okay? And that's the thing. Very few vaccines produce 100%, but in the case of rabies, 85 is the minimum for the three -year duration. People that sort of got involved with this, there's something called the Rabies Challenge Fund that came up a few years ago.

Amy Castro (21:29.559)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (21:46.484)
And that was designed to find out how long do rabies vaccines actually last. And what they managed to do with that was to get the five year results, which said, hey, we're doing good. Unfortunately, the study broke down due to, I call it technical errors. And they weren't able to keep it going after that. And so unfortunately it was sort of an unfinished study. But the hickor is this.

you're not gonna find a vaccine manufacturer who's gonna do an expensive study like that with the goal to reducing their sales. It just doesn't make sense for them, okay? The one thing I do wanna comment on though, in caps, there has been a vaccine that was produced which was quote, purer than the original vaccines.

Amy Castro (22:24.279)
Mm, right. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (22:39.956)
And so because of that, it didn't have a lot of the gunk in there and it specifically didn't have an adjuvant. Adjuvant is additive vaccines to bump up the immune response. So the key with that is that the adjuvants originally were blamed for creating the higher incidence of the tumor, the fibrosarcoma we were talking about.

And so this vaccine was manufactured, but because it didn't have an adjuvant to stimulate immunity and it was brought on sort of quickly, it was only good for one year. So that one had that rabies, that specific rabies vaccine had to be done every year in cats. This wasn't dogs, it was strictly, strictly cats. But what we now know is that the incidence of tumor is no different with the non -adjuvanted one year vaccine.

and the three -year adjuvanted vaccine. And what we're doing is we're giving three times as many vaccine, which is just boosts up the number of the tumors that can actually occur. So very good reasons to avoid the one -year vaccine and stick with a three -year one if you have to do it. And unfortunately, as you mentioned, Amy, in Texas, but in pretty much every US state, there is a requirement for rabies vaccination.

Amy Castro (24:03.319)
Right.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (24:03.796)
Okay. There is something in the number that I've got from this and I don't know how accurate it is, is 18 states supposedly have exemptions for rabies vaccine that you can actually apply for, so to speak. But that has to be done by a veterinarian and what they do is they apply for an exemption based on the health of the animal, had past reactions to the vaccine or something like that.

And certainly when you're dealing with a cat that's got kidney failure, you've got a dog that's diabetic or had cancer like a mast cell tumor, you know, things like that, it's kind of like, gee, do we want to give them any vaccines and mess up their immune system here? And if the answer is no, that's what we're trying to avoid. We're trying to prevent that from happening. Like you say, the rabies incidence is really low. But unfortunately, because it's a human disease,

Amy Castro (24:42.167)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (24:48.439)
Yeah, really.

Amy Castro (24:58.615)
Mm -hmm.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (25:01.844)
the then you get public health involved and they're the ones that stimulated the rabies vaccination laws for the dogs and cats. So very hard to get around that. OK. And so because of that, unfortunately, we do see some areas where the rabies vaccine is really pushed. And this is this is one sort of thing I get, I guess, confused and concerned about is that

Amy Castro (25:10.935)
Right, right.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (25:32.244)
When did veterinarians become the police in the rabies vaccines for animals?

Amy Castro (25:39.831)
Hmm. Good point.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (25:40.212)
as in why are they the ones that are pushing this point when it's the law that should be saying it and then it should be our option to say, hey, I'm not going to do it, I'm going to disregard the law, but the veterinarians quite often get in there saying that we have to do it. And it comes down to their liability, but I think it's a little bit misguided. I don't think we do that, you know?

Amy Castro (26:07.223)
Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (26:08.66)
It's the same thing with our medical doctors. They do the same thing to us. Good question.

Amy Castro (26:10.231)
Well, it even.

Amy Castro (26:17.303)
Yeah. Well, I think, you know, as far as the rabies goes, I mean, when it would ever come up is really when you're trying to do something like going to a boarding facility, going to a training class, whatever it might be, where there would be required proof of rabies, because your average person who

goes to the vet once a year, gets done what needs to get done, has their vet in their home, takes their vet everywhere, their vet, excuse me, has their pet in their home and takes their pet everywhere with them and doesn't partake of those facilities. Nobody's ever gonna question whether their dog has a rabies vaccine unless it bites somebody, then that's a whole nother ball of wax, but it's just not something that's gonna come up.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (26:56.5)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that is a no, no, if you're just walking down the street, you don't have the people asking you, can I see your rabies vaccine before I pet your dog? You know, so but but anyway, yeah. The thing about that is that if you if you're pushed into doing any vaccines and this is just a case of if you have to get vaccines done.

Amy Castro (27:08.119)
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (27:24.308)
There's also what we call remedies that are recommended to try to help that out. And specifically when we're talking about the vaccines in dogs and cats, there's a remedy, homeopathic remedy called Thuja, and it's spelled T -H -U -J -A. And that one is a general remedy that's used for vaccinosis to prevent the side effects of vaccines long term.

Then if you're dealing with rabies, the most common one that's used is called Lysin. L -Y -S -S -I -N Because the rabies is a Lysivirus. That's where the name comes from. Okay, and so, I mean those are homeopathic remedies that are used a lot for incense like a detox and So definitely if you're getting that done, that's something to consider as well. Okay.

Amy Castro (27:54.391)
Okay.

Amy Castro (28:07.127)
Okay.

Amy Castro (28:14.583)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (28:19.927)
Okay. So kind of along that same line, are there, you know, for somebody that might be, you know, concerned about disease, but at the same time, maybe more concerned about vaccines, are there alternatives to vaccines to, you know, to protecting our pets from some of these common diseases?

Dr. Jeff Grognet (28:40.82)
Okay, well there's two ways to go. One is to reduce the vaccines to a lower number as possible. And the other one is to not use vaccines and use a different method. Okay, in terms of the different method, that's where we're talking about using homeopathic nosodes. And nosodes are homeopathic preparations made from the disease itself, it contains the virus. And then they're prepared in the...

homeopathic method of dilution and succession as they call it. And that is what's given to the animal. And this is the key, it doesn't produce an immune response. Okay, so you can't measure antibodies after you give them a homeopathic preparation. What you're giving them the homeopathic thing for is that they're at risk of picking up the disease. And what it does is it helps the dog or cat.

get through that without having any symptoms of the disease at the time. And if you want to get into nosodes, there's companies that sell them both for dogs and cats. And you just look up homeopathic nosodes for canine distemper, or you look for feline leukemia or something like that. And what you can do is you can purchase them. What I found is that each one of them has different directions on how to use them.

Amy Castro (29:40.887)
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (30:03.924)
And so what you'll find is some say give it, you know, twice a week or something like that during the susceptible period. And then you give it once a month or something like that. They're all over the map on that. And so where you purchase it from, they'll be able to tell you how you should use it. But that's one method. The other way, and this is the one that I used at the hospital, is, and just to, here's a...

Amy Castro (30:04.759)
Okay.

Amy Castro (30:24.151)
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (30:31.572)
very simple program for you and I'll tell you what it is and then I'll tell you how it works. What I was doing, for example in dogs, is that I would see them as a puppy at 16 weeks. I'd see them before then but the first vaccine and the only vaccine I gave was at 16 weeks of age. The reason we wait for that is maternal antibodies have come down.

Amy Castro (30:37.559)
Okay.

Dr. Jeff Grognet (30:54.996)
And so what happens is as they go down, there's no interference from the maternal antibodies they got from their mother's colostrum. Therefore, they'll respond to the vaccine at 16 weeks. And 97 % of puppies respond then. Okay, so we know that.

Amy Castro (32:15.735)
right.

Amy Castro (32:41.367)
okay. Because I was wondering if that was going to be something you have to keep doing.

Amy Castro (33:10.391)
Right.

Amy Castro (34:06.199)
Okay.

Amy Castro (34:10.903)
Okay. So, you know, and I kind of skipped over a question that I was going to ask you, but I want to get back to the idea of kind of traditional versus I mean, that sounds like the, you know, what a holistic veterinarian would take that approach versus a traditional and I know there's, you know, there's a scale of people in between, you know, it's not just, you know, one extreme or the other, but, you know, from the one end where it's traditional and this is just what we do.

you know, we give vaccines every single time until the dog dies or cat dies versus, you know, the one and done approach. You know, how is a pet parent to know like, what's the what's the right thing to do? Or how do you, you know, do I just go out and look for a veterinarian that has this approach over here? Or do I try to convince my veterinarian to take that approach? Or, you know, because it kind of, you know, we're not the vets, we're, you know, we're relying on their advice when we go there.

Amy Castro (35:11.767)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (35:18.909)
Yeah.

Amy Castro (35:44.151)
Yes.

Amy Castro (35:54.359)
Yes.

Amy Castro (36:30.007)
Right.

Makes you feel better about what you're deciding.

Amy Castro (37:18.103)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (37:30.359)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (39:00.151)
Mm.

Amy Castro (39:06.647)
Sure.

Amy Castro (39:30.807)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (39:55.735)
you

Amy Castro (40:02.327)
Mm. Yeah.

Amy Castro (40:14.263)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (40:20.055)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (40:40.183)
Yeah. So what would be your advice as far as, you know, I'm going into, you know, I live in a small town, it's somewhere in the world and there's one veterinarian in town. So I work with what I work with, you know, versus in Houston, I could probably seek out a veterinarian that had my beliefs and, you know, work that way. What would you suggest as far as a pet parent having those conversations? I mean, first of all, you have to have the guts to stand up and...

and say, I have concerns about this, but what else can we do to have that conversation with our vets?

Amy Castro (41:24.183)
Okay.

Amy Castro (41:31.159)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (43:14.807)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. So you do have the right to speak up and say, you know, I decline. I do not want to have that vaccine. And it's just I think people just need to be better advocates for their pets. But it's awkward, you know, these authorities figure that's telling you that they're the ones that went to the school for extra four years or more. And it's kind of hard to stand up to that for some people.

Amy Castro (43:46.039)
Yep.

Amy Castro (43:57.751)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (44:42.903)
Yeah.

Amy Castro (44:52.599)
Good point.

Amy Castro (44:57.879)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (45:27.735)
Yeah, good point, good point. Okay, anything else that we didn't cover that you think we should work into this episode here?

Amy Castro (45:50.551)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Castro (46:28.087)
Yeah. Yep. Okay. All right. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for being here with us today and for sharing this information. I think, like I said, I think people are very confused. They're anxious, they're worried about it. And I think what you've shared today has really helped people to A, better understand things and better create a plan for how they're gonna move forward with their pets.

Amy Castro (46:57.367)
All right, well, you take care and thank you to everybody for listening to another episode of Starlight Pet Talk and we will see you next week.

All right, awesome, thank you so much.