Vaccinations & Annual Health Checks

Vaccinations help protect your pet against common but potentially life-threatening illnesses, including:

• Dogs: Parvovirus, Distemper, Hepatitis, Leptospirosis, Kennel Cough
• Cats: Cat Flu, Feline Enteritis, Feline Leukaemia Virus (FeLV)

These diseases can cause serious illness, suffering, and even death — especially in unvaccinated pets. Some, like Parvovirus and Feline Enteritis, spread easily in the environment and can survive for months outside a host, meaning even pets that don’t mix with others directly can still be at risk. Keeping your pet up to date with their boosters ensures long-term immunity and helps protect the wider animal population too, through what’s known as herd immunity — fewer circulating cases means lower risk for every pet in the community, including those who can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons.

Puppies and kittens need an initial course of vaccinations, usually as a series of injections a few weeks apart, before their immunity is properly established. We’ll talk you through the right schedule for your new pet as part of their first visit.

Each annual vaccination appointment includes a comprehensive health check, where we:

• Take a full medical history
• Check eyes, ears, mouth and teeth
• Listen to the heart and lungs
• Examine skin, coat and body condition
• Check joints, lymph nodes and abdomen
• Assess weight, behaviour, and lifestyle

This gives us a valuable baseline and helps us detect early signs of illness, often before symptoms are visible at home. The earlier we find a problem, the easier it is to manage or treat — many common conditions, from early dental disease to a developing heart murmur, are picked up this way before an owner would ever notice anything at home. We keep a record of these findings year on year, so we can track subtle changes in your pet over time rather than assessing each visit in isolation.

No two pets are the same — which is why we personalise every vaccination plan based on:

• Breed and size
• Age and life stage
• Lifestyle (e.g. indoor/outdoor, travel, multi-pet households)
• Medical history and any known sensitivities

Whether your cat rarely leaves the sofa or your dog is an avid explorer, we’ll build a preventative care plan that suits their unique needs. Some vaccines are considered “core” and recommended for almost every pet, while others are “non-core” or lifestyle vaccines — such as kennel cough cover for a dog that goes to daycare or boarding, or additional protection for cats with regular outdoor access. We’ll explain which category each recommendation falls into and why.

We’ll never recommend a vaccine your pet doesn’t need. Instead, we’ll talk you through the risks, benefits, and options — so you can make an informed decision with our expert support. If your pet has had a previous reaction to a vaccine, an ongoing health condition, or you simply want to understand the reasoning behind a recommendation, we’re happy to talk it through in as much detail as you’d like.

We also use this time to offer wellness advice, covering diet, parasite control, dental health, weight management and anything else that’s relevant to your pet’s wellbeing. It’s a natural moment to raise anything you’ve noticed at home, however minor it might seem.

Vaccinations and health checks are essential, even if your pet seems perfectly healthy. Subtle changes often go unnoticed at home, but can be picked up during a thorough veterinary exam. Pets are also instinctively good at masking illness or discomfort, which is exactly why a hands-on annual exam by a vet catches things a devoted owner can still miss.

Book your pet’s annual health check today and give them the protection — and attention — they deserve.

For some adult pets and vaccines, titre testing — a blood test that measures existing antibody levels — can be used to check whether a booster is actually needed, rather than vaccinating automatically on a fixed schedule. This isn’t suitable or available for every vaccine or every pet, but where it is appropriate, we’re happy to discuss it as an option. Whatever we recommend, the annual health check itself remains just as important, whether or not a booster is due that year.