Dog and Cats Vaccination
Guard your companion from life-threatening illnesses through regular vaccinations. We’ll create a custom schedule for your pet’s immediate health situation.
Pet owners want to keep their pets healthy and safe, which is why we recommend a personalized vaccination schedule. A simple way to protect from viruses and bacteria, vaccinations boost your pet’s immune system from potentially life-threatening diseases. And if the cost is a concern, we have found that it is much more cost-effective to vaccinate against kennel cough and parvovirus than treat after a pet has contracted the illness.
While we advocate for vaccinations, we are careful about the vaccinations we recommend for each pet. Our skilled veterinarians take utmost care creating a schedule that suits your pet’s health history, current health situation, and lifestyle that might expose the pet to illnesses. By working in tandem with your knowledge of your pet, we will create a tailored plan specifically suited to your pet’s health needs.
In the beginning of a pet’s life, puppies and kittens ingest maternal antibodies while nursing, which can neutralize any effect of viruses or bacteria. By 8 weeks of age, the maternal antibodies can wear off, which makes your puppy or kitten susceptible to illness. With our knowledge about young animal health, we will create a vaccination schedule to achieve optimum protection for your little one against disease.
VACCINATIONS: WHY & WHEN
The recent debates about human vaccine safety have left many pet owners wondering whether their dogs and cats should be vaccinated. The short answer is: Yes, definitely! Pets should receive core vaccines—those medically necessary for all pets—and may need others depending on their lifestyle.
No medication is without risk, but the benefits of vaccinating pets certainly outweigh the few risks because many common vaccinations in pets protect against devastating diseases, such as rabies, and even death. Vaccinations not only protect pets, they are also a component of human disease prevention. Approximately 59,000 people worldwide die each year from rabies, according to the World Health Organization, but only one or two deaths occur in the US, where laws require pets to be vaccinated and more than $300 million is spent annually on rabies prevention. Widespread vaccination means that few pets get rabies and few humans are exposed. More than 95% of rabies deaths occur in Africa and Asia, which lack successful vaccination programs.
The most likely vaccination complications include tissue swelling around the injection site; mild signs of illness such as fever, lethargy, and soreness; and allergic reactions to the vaccine that can range from mild to life-threatening. The likelihood of a dangerous reaction is low, whereas the likelihood of your pet developing a life-threatening disease if he is not vaccinated is much higher.
To determine whether a pet should be vaccinated against a particular disease, your veterinarian will assess his exposure risk, including:
Age: A specific vaccination protocol is necessary to help puppies and kittens build resistance to disease while the immunity passed from their mothers wears off. After the initial vaccine series, booster vaccines are required for adult pets to maintain immunity.
Geography: Exposure risk to some diseases is higher in some geographic areas; for example, Lyme disease is most prevalent in heavily wooded areas, such as the Northeast.
Lifestyle: Cats who live solely indoors with no contact with other cats have little risk of exposure to feline leukemia and may not need this vaccination. But if your cat goes outside, spends time at a boarding
Vaccines contain small quantities of altered or “killed” viruses, bacteria, or other disease-causing organisms that stimulate your pet’s immune system to produce antibodies.
Veterinarians agree that your pet should be protected against those diseases that are most common, highly contagious, and cause serious illness. These diseases could include:
- For dogs: canine distemper, infectious canine hepatitis, canine parvovirus, and rabies.
- For cats: Feline Panleukopenia, Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis, Feline Calicivirus, Rabies and, depending on lifestyle, Feline Leukemia.
Other vaccinations may be recommended, based on your veterinarian’s evaluation of the risks posed by such factors as your pet’s particular environment and lifestyle.