Why we recommend dog and cat vaccinations
You can protect your four-legged family member from all kinds of dangers, but cat and dog vaccinations are the only way to keep “invisible” enemies like distemper and parvovirus at bay. At Church Street Vets, we recommend a combination of core (essential for all pets) and non-core (lifestyle-based) vaccines to give your pet the best protection possible.
Along with keeping pets safer, cat and dog vaccines can also help to reduce or even prevent the spread of harmful diseases in our community, which helps to protect other animals and in some cases, people too. To ensure that your pet only receives the vaccines that they really need, we base our recommendations on their health status, vaccine history, lifestyle, and home environment.
Is your pet currently unprotected from infectious diseases?
Call 02 6372 6780 to schedule their vaccine appointment.
Our Core Vaccines for Dogs
Core vaccines are those which we recommend for all dogs regardless of their lifestyle. This means that your pet does not need to have a direct encounter with another animal to be at risk for the following diseases:
- Distemper
- Hepatitis
- Parvovirus
To protect dogs against these diseases, we provide them with what we call the C3 vaccination.
Our Core Vaccines for Cats
Cats also require certain vaccines to stay healthy, even if they spend all their time indoors. The diseases for which they need to be vaccinated against are:
- Feline Herpes Virus
- Panleukopenia Virus
- Feline Calicivirus
Our F3 vaccination provides cats with ample protection from all of the above.
Non-Core Vaccines for Dogs and Cats
We’ll need to assess your pet’s health, lifestyle, and living environment to help you determine which non-core vaccines they’ll need over the course of their lifetime. Here are some of the non-core vaccines we recommend for dogs and cats:
- Canine Cough – dogs only, mandatory for dogs that will be boarding
- Canine Leptospirosis & Canine Coronavirus – dogs only
- Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) – cats only, typically those that are allowed outside
Puppy and Kitten Vaccinations
Puppies and kittens can be very vulnerable to illness when they are young, so it is important to start vaccinating them at about 6-8 weeks old. Here are our recommendations:
Puppies
6 – 8 weeks: 1st vaccination
10 – 12 weeks: 2nd vaccination
14 – 16 weeks: 3rd vaccination
Kittens
8 weeks: 1st vaccination
12 weeks: 2nd vacciantion
If we recommend that your kitten receive the FIV vaccine, they will undergo a series of 3 injections, each given 2-3 weeks apart.