Most of the time, it's going to be scratching, shaking their head, and discomfort as far as their skin or ears go, and those areas will also have redness to them.

They are a lot more common than you would think. If your dog’s scratching is occasional, that's pretty normal, but your dog should not be scratching nonstop. That is not a normal thing. We see at least a couple of patients a day that will have some type of allergy that we diagnose.

The most common things that we will see are your dog scratching, losing hair, red skin, chewing at their feet, and scratching their ears. Those are generally the most common types of things that we'll see.

They can be painful. I try to give the analogy of when we have had a vaccine. You're generally a little sore. The vaccine itself has a needle, so it is going to sting a little bit. Most dogs tolerate it pretty well. And especially if we can distract them with a treat, they don't tend to mind. But they will usually be a little sore and perhaps a little more tired than usual that day. But generally, after that, they bounce back.

As far as that goes, if your dog has had an allergic vaccine reaction before, we will generally give them a Benadryl injection and potentially even a pain injection to try and help minimize that as a possibility.

There can be, just like any vaccines that a human will get. There are risks associated with vaccines. But from our studies, the overall risks do not outweigh the benefits that the vaccines provide. And so, as far as the risks go, you're going to have the possibility of allergic reactions, swelling, or that can be things as far as an actual vaccine-type reaction that can cause some swelling and discomfort down the road. So, there are risks that you have to certainly keep in mind.

It depends on where they are in the schedule. We recommend puppies get a booster vaccine three weeks later, especially if it's a leptospirosis vaccine and they've only had it the one time. If they have missed it, if it's been over that three-week or four-week mark, it's going to be most ideal to give them an additional booster three weeks afterward.