What Shots Do Dogs Need?

Video transcription

Hi, I'm Doctor Greg McDonald and today we're going to talk about canine health. I'm a veterinarian in Southern California and one of the things we'd like to talk about today is how to keep your dog vaccinated properly. There is a lot of controversy over vaccinations, but there's certain vaccines that are just absolutely mandatory for your dog. If you don't get them, your dog could die of the disease or in some cases, like the first one we're going to talk about, rabies, there's some human health hazards involved as well. If your dog were to get rabies and bite you, you could get rabies too and it is a lethal virus. If people get it or dogs or cats get it they all die. So when you first start seeing your veterinarian, you should start at six weeks when you get a new puppy and your veterinarian will set up a regular regime of vaccinations for you. And one of them that we're talking about first is called rabies and rabies is usually started between four and six months, you get your first vaccine. And there after you get a booster at one year and then following that you can start to go depending upon your state, it could vary a little bit but sometimes it becomes a three year vaccination. And it's very very important to get this through your veterinarian. It is one of those that is required by law in most parts of the country and it's again, why we don't have rabies. Here's a little vial that I'll show you. This is a rabies vaccination vial and this is what we call a ten dose. I take one cc out of this and give this subcutaneously in to the do. As a veterinarian I like to give all of the rabies shots on the right side of the dog and that us to understand if there's a problem after the vaccine, which vaccine caused that problem. When you first see your veterinarian, at six weeks of age for your puppy, the most important vaccines that all puppies should be getting are distemper, parvo virus, leptospirosis, and there are a few other vaccines. Usual your veterinarian will kind of modify them a little bit based on which part of the country you live in. But the ones that are really mandatory that your dog will die of if they get this disease is the distemper as well as the parvo. Another vaccine that's usually mandatory if an animal is going to be boarded somewhere is one called Bordetella. Bordetella is a vaccination that we use for kennel cough. And this is what the Bordetella vaccine looks like. This is a vaccine that's required if you're dog is going to boarded someplace and it's a wise vaccine to get if your dog is going in to grooming or is having contact with other dogs on the beach. This actually helps to prevent kennel cough. Kennel cough is a virus as well as a bacteria that colonizes the trachea. And if your dog gets this disease they cough for two weeks and they sometimes can get pneumonia if it's not treated appropriately. So whenever your dog goes in to a boarding facility, good boarding facilities are going to require this as a vaccine. Another vaccination that we like to give is one, and if you're living in an area that has a lot of tics and these tics might be coming down with lime. This is the vaccination and again this is one that we use frequently if an animal's coming down with a lot of tics, you see a lot of tics on your dog, this vaccine prevents lime disease. Lime disease also carries a little bit of a human health hazard. If your dog gets it and is bitten by tic and that tic bites you, then you can actually come down with it as well. This particular disease is quite devastating to them. It usually doesn't kill an animal or a person but it makes them very very sick and it can be quite debilitating if it is untreated.