Canine Influenza Vaccine: A Nationwide Backorder

Canine Influenza (CIV), or “Dog flu”, burst into the lives of dog owners and veterinarians in 2015, wreaking havoc particularly in the Midwest. Fortunately for the dog-loving Pacific Northwest, thanks to hardworking veterinarians, rescue organizations and vaccine companies, a vaccine for this highly contagious respiratory virus was developed and rolled out before we saw a major outbreak here.

Because Canine Influenza (CIV) is so contagious and can lead to dangerous pneumonia, the CIV vaccine quickly became a core vaccine recommended for most dogs and is mandatory for nearly all boarding and daycare facilities.

Unfortunately, as many of you have encountered, there has been a nation-wide backorder of this vaccine for the last several months. Like you may have experienced with your human family medication backorders, there is little information forthcoming about when we can expect to have a reliable supply of CIV vaccines in stock. In the meantime, veterinary healthcare providers have been scrambling with occasional small amounts of vaccine arriving without notice and long droughts without expected restock timelines from our suppliers. We know this is frustrating for pet owners, especially now that summer vacation season is upon us, and we share your frustration as professionals who want to protect your dogs!

My dog needs a CIV vaccine for boarding/daycare/etc, what should I do?

Call us! Our CSR team will have the latest status update on CIV availability at Frontier. We occasionally receive small amounts of vaccine, and are offering these on a first-come-first-serve basis. Because this has been ongoing for several months, and we’ve only received a tiny percentage of the vaccines needed to protect all our patients that need the vaccine, we cannot effectively maintain a waitlist or announce when we have vaccines in stock.

*Please note: we cannot start first-time vaccine series for puppies or adult dogs until we have reliable stock, because we cannot ensure we’ll have CIV in stock when time-sensitive booster vaccines would be required in a few weeks. Without a booster the initial vaccine is essentially wasted, so we can protect more pets by ensuring as many dogs in our pet population are fully vaccinated as possible.