Dog Vaccination Requirements to Stay in Day Care and Boarding

As a dog owner, vaccinations should be an essential part of your pet’s healthcare regime. Not only do they stop the spread of some very contagious diseases, they offer dog’s long term protection against serious viruses and illness. In an effort to cut down the spread of viruses such as kennel cough in day-care and boarding, it is now policy that your dog is fully vaccinated before enrolling them.

Although the vaccination requirements can vary depending on the day-care or boarding centre, dogs will unquestionably need their core vaccinations also known as the C3 vaccinations. These include:

- Distemper Virus: Causes coughing, diarrhoea and sometimes twitching, seizures, loss of balance, blindness.

- Adenovirus or Hepatitis: Causes vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain and possibly even liver failure.

- Parvovirus: Causes potentially fatal diarrhoea, especially in pups and dogs under 2 years.

- Kennel cough (Bordetella Bronchiseptica)

Your local veterinarian should be aware of these policies and be able to provide your pet with what it needs.If your dog has already had its core vaccinations (C3), your vet can provide an intranasal for kennel cough in conjunction with C3 treatment.

It’s very important to remember that these vaccinations are not just for the health and safety of your own dog, but for the health and safety of all of the other dogs. Vaccinations cannot stop an animal from becoming infected by a virus, but they do reduce the chance and severity of infections and make recovery quicker and more resistant to the development of disease. So remember a happy dog makes a happy owner!