Vaccinations

Following a few easy preventive guidelines can help make sure that your pet stays healthy, and you save money.

Immunizing or vaccinating a pet is a safe, smart, and inexpensive protection against a variety of deadly diseases that are known to infect both dogs and cats. By following a regular vaccination schedule, your pet will make antibodies to those specific viruses and will have protection if they are exposed. Diseases such as canine parvovirus, canine distemper, feline leukemia, feline distemper (panleukopenia), and rabies are all easily prevented by the administration of regular vaccinations during the pet’s lifetime. Each of the above mentioned infectious diseases threaten the pet’s life, and can be extremely costly to treat.

Not all pets need all available vaccines. Pet Doctors follows the Vaccination Guidelines published for both the dog and the cat which categorize vaccines as CORE or NON-CORE. Core vaccines are those that every dog and every cat should receive because of the prevalence and seriousness of the disease. Non-core vaccines are those that the practice considers to be indicated for pets at high risk, unique to the individual dog or cat. For example, we may discuss a Lyme vaccine for dogs that camp up north, with high exposure to the deer tick that transmits the disease. We tailor our recommendations to each pet’s age, exposure risk, and lifestyle.

Puppies and kittens present a special case. Because the immunity from their mother is waning in those early months, and they are more seriously affected if exposed, it is important to boost their protection against disease, with vaccines given at much shorter intervals. We will work with clients to create the best vaccination schedule for their individual pets.
A simple vaccination will keep your pet from suffering from or even losing their life to a preventable disease. While the subject may spark controversy among some, following your veterinarian’s advice is still the best course of action. Vaccinated pets do not contract or die from these diseases. Sadly, we often do lose unvaccinated pets to diseases that could have been prevented. You can watch an interesting video about vaccinations by visiting www.VetNewsNet.com.