[Clinical experience with kennel-specific E. coli oral vaccines in dogs]

Kennel-specific oral E. coli vaccines were tested for efficacy and side effects at breeding and boarding kennels with severe diarrhoea problems. Oral vaccines contained heat inactivated E. coli bacteria from specific kennels and were given once daily for 14 days. Oral vaccines were administered directly orally to puppies while for adult dogs vaccines were mixed with daily food rations. In breeding kennels with 4 to 10 week old puppies suffering from non-fatal diarrhoea, the oral immunization led to a decrease in morbidity from 86.5% to 0%. In kennels with some cases of fatal diarrhoea the rate of morbidity decreased from 45% to 21% and the mortality rate from 25% to 10.3% after using the vaccination. By vaccinating adult dogs in boarding kennels the morbidity rate dropped from 83.5% to 6.5% and the mortality rate from 4.1% to 0.5%. The kennel specific oral E. coli vaccine was found to be free of side effects. No adverse effects were observed in either puppies or adult dogs.