What’s New In Puppy Vaccines?

Does your puppy need vaccination? Don’t feel silly if you’re confused about all the conflicting advice.

There are a lot of different protocols and it’s just got more complicated!

What Is The Best Way To Vaccinate A Puppy?

Here is how we give puppy vaccinations, based on the latest evidence-based immunisation recommendations.

vaccine guidelines
vaccine guidelines

Up to now that’s been using early finish vaccines that allow your puppy to go socialising and walking from 11 weeks of age. The Nobivac product insert with its usage instructions is shown here.

Older vaccination programs finish puppies at 16 weeks of age or later. By using these, your puppy can’t freely socialise and explore their environment during the sensitive period of environmental and social habituation. Of course, you can still:

  • Attend puppy preschool,
  • Expose your dog to stimuli from the safety of their own property,
  • Meet healthy immunised dogs in their homes,
    but that’s all.
puppy early vaccine

We find that puppies only allowed these options are more likely to have fears or anxieties and be less comfortable in all situations. Therefore, up to now we’ve been very happy with our protocol.

However…

The World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) have just released their Updated Global Vaccination Guidelines.

It’s clearly stated that all dogs should receive their final parvovirus vaccine at 16 weeks of age or older. This puts us in a dilemma:

  • We don’t want to deprive puppies of essential socialisation.
  • We don’t want to take risks.

Here’s what we now recommend:

Updated Puppy Vaccination Plan

First Puppy Vaccination

dog cough vaccine

No change. This is given to all puppies at 6 to 8 weeks of age. Dogs from reputable breeders will have already had this. If not, come to us straight away.

Second Early Finish Vaccination

No change. This is given as soon as possible from 10 weeks of age. These vaccines are proven from testing to provide protection for 12 months when given at or after 10 weeks of age.

Therefore, until recently, this is where we stopped.

Third Safety Net Parvovirus Vaccination

puppy parvovirus vaccine

New. The WSAVA guidelines have convinced us to add a safety net vaccine at 16 weeks. We’ve chosen to use the monovalent parvovirus vaccine pictured to minimise the number of unnecessary components.

Using the 10 week finish vaccine according to its registered claim is enough to be very confident.

We still recommend you start walking your puppy one week after the 10 week vaccine is given. After all, that’s how the Nobivac vaccine was developed and tested, and it’s been providing this protection for over ten years.

We’ve added a small charge to our Puppy Vaccination Package to cover this third vaccine. See the total cost here.

Do puppies really need it? The vast majority won’t. Therefore you are welcome to choose to not have it and ask for it to be discounted from the package price.

Puppy vaccination is vital in Adelaide, so if you have any other questions please ask!