How often should I vaccinate my pet?

How often or do I need to vaccinate my pet?

Hi, my name is Dr. Sean McPeck, the CEO and owner of Tier 1 Veterinary Medical Center. A few different ways to look at this one. Are you traveling outside the state? Are you going to other areas or are you just staying in Alaska? There are some core vaccines that you definitely need to get in the beginning when you have a puppy or a kitten.

There’s a three shot series that helps you establish that immune system and resistance to a core set of diseases that these animals can get and some can be very life threatening. Parvo, for example, the parvovirus up here is a dog killer. It is such an easy disease to prevent by vaccinating your dog. And they’re good. But yes, many of these vaccines, rabies, for example, is one that is legally required.

It is endemic to Alaska. Our population of wildlife, especially up towards the Arctic, is absolutely just full of rabies. So it would behoove you to get the rabies vaccine. But it’s also something that if for whatever reason, let’s say your dog got out, had no identification on it, didn’t have a microchip, animal control got a hold of it.

They have the authority to euthanize an animal if they don’t know if it is vaccinated for rabies. So it helps to preserve your animal’s life 100%. Now, there are certain vaccines that once you get to an established annual dosing that you’ve been on top of it, you’ve come in 365 days later after that initial series, then your veterinarian has the authority to give you a three year authorization on the vaccine.

But, there are other ones people ask about like lepto, they ask about Lyme. So we don’t have that up here. It’s not something that’s endemic to the wildlife population, nor do we have the ticks that carry the disease. But if you’re traveling outside of the state, let’s say you’re a hunter that likes to go down and hunt in certain areas of the lower 48 and you bring your dog and bring them back, then yes, I would definitely be recommending other vaccines for you to get.

It depends on the situation. But yes, I highly recommend vaccinating your cats and your dog and being on top of that. It’s such a small investment to save their life. I mean, you know, each vaccine for parvo is $25 to $35 a pop. Get that first three shot series on board and that compared to a $4000 to $5000 hospital bill to try and save the dog’s life, and they may or may not walk out of the hospital.

It’s common sense, an ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure type thing. So, yes, vaccinate your animals. And feel free to leave a comment and let us know if this was helpful. We’re trying to get a little bit of education out to the public. If there is something that you wish we would have expanded on or hit on, definitely leave that in the comments. If you liked it, hit the like button and subscribe so you can get any of the future videos that we release. Thanks.