by Roberta Colby

Created on: August 04, 2009

How can this even be a question? I mean seriously. Of course you need to vaccinate older pets. They're more liable to get diseases then the younger ones. The young animals have a stronger immune system. Older pets are available to arthritis, cancer, bone diseases. Things like that. Why would you have an animal if you didn't plan on keeping them up to date in their treatments? Every animal should have the same immunizations that go with their ages. Older pets should be on the list to keep alive as long as possible. If you love your pet, you'll want it around for as long as possible. So why would you want to risk losing that pet to a disease that could have been treated by a vaccine? That would personally make me guilty if my oldest pet died from something, just because I didn't "take the time to go to the vet." Or, "I didn't think it was necessary, I mean he's going to die soon anyway right?" How cruel does that sound?

Older pets should be kept close and under the right supervision. They might start getting hard of hearing, and seeing. Maybe they don't know anything anymore. If it gets bad enough I believe its right to put them to sleep, but not let them die because you didn't have them vaccinated. Animals are like people. When an elderly person needs a shot, do you say to them "You don't need that, you might be getting it for nothing. You are going to die soon anyway, why slow it down?" Would you say that to a person? I wouldn't. So then you shouldn't think like that when it comes to treating your pets.

I think that pet vaccines are really important. They keep them healthy, at least as much as they can. And they try to keep the pets from dying. I know the only person in the world that can control death is God, but vaccines help with keeping them healthy so there's no reason to think about that pet dying for a while. I have a puppy, and I know for a fact that he's up to date on all of his shots, and check ups, and I plan on keeping it that way all the way through his life. I couldn't picture letting him die from a disease that could have been stopped from a short trip to the vet to get a check-up and shots. How could someone even think about not getting their older pets vaccinated? It's almost like animal neglect.

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