Vaccinations
At Frisco Pet Hospital, we do our best to protect the health and safety of your entire family — human members included. When you have pets, making sure they’re properly vaccinated is essential to keeping everyone healthy.
How Do Cat and Dog Vaccines Work?
Vaccines for dogs and cats work in the same way as vaccines for humans. They contain a small amount of partial or inactive virus. When exposed to the vaccine, your pet’s immune system responds to the inactive virus, building up antigens. When exposed to the active virus in real life, your pet’s immune system will remember the virus and attack it immediately before it can infect your pet.
Are Pet Vaccines Safe?
Yes, pet vaccines are safe and incredibly effective. There’s always a small chance your pet could have an allergic reaction to a vaccine, but any severe adverse reactions are rare.
Why You Should Vaccinate Your Pets
Life-Saving
Many of the diseases that vaccines prevent have no curative treatment. That means we can only provide supportive care, like fluids and pain medications, should a pet become ill with one of these preventable diseases.
Guard Against Zoonotic Diseases
Several diseases, like rabies and leptospirosis, that can be prevented with vaccination are easily transmitted between pets and people.
Create a Healthier Community
The more animals that are vaccinated, the less contagious disease is in a community. Vaccinating your pets protects other pets, wildlife, and the people around you.
Cost-Effective
Vaccines are always less expensive than the cost of treating a pet that becomes seriously ill from a contagious disease.
Which Vaccines Does My Pet Need?
Pet vaccines are separated into two different categories:
- Core Vaccines - Core vaccines include those that are recommended or required by law for every pet to have.
- Dogs : Rabies, canine distemper, parvovirus, and hepatitis
- Cats: Rabies, feline distemper, feline calicivirus, and rhinotracheitis
- Non-Core Vaccines - Non-core vaccines include elective vaccines that are administered on a case-by-case basis depending on your pet's exposure risk. Non-core vaccines prevent diseases like kennel cough (bordetella), Lyme disease, leptospirosis, and feline leukemia.
Our veterinarian can help you determine the schedule of vaccinations that will best protect your pet and your human family members.
Make Sure Your Pet Is Protected
If you have a new puppy, kitten, adult, or senior pet, then we strongly encourage you to keep their vaccines up to date with a regular schedule of boosters.
To learn more about pet vaccines or to schedule an appointment for your pet, we welcome you to contact Frisco Pet Hospital today.
