Antibody titre testing can be performed in house to see whether your dog has a sufficient level of antibodies to previous vaccinations, or whether these need to be repeated to maintain immunity. Distemper, Parvo and Hepatitis vaccines should last at least 3 years in the healthy patient, however the Lepto does not. As such, Lepto should be boosted yearly and we do not regularly titre test for this, however for the other vaccines, we can do a simple blood test instead of vaccinating; if the antibody levels are sufficiently high, vaccination is unnecessary – that year. If antibody levels are low, we know that vaccination is required. The downside is that this takes a blood test and usually 2 visits, as we test the bloods (which takes a minimum of 90 min), then vaccinate depending on results.
Rabies titre testing is also potentially required now for passports – these get sent to a government approved lab for validation.
