It's important for a couple of reasons: the quality of vaccines makes a huge difference. I'm not going to point fingers at any of these places where they might be selling vaccines, but I always wonder about the quality of the vaccine manufactured in the first place and the reaction rate to vaccines. Second, how are those vaccines handled? They had to be refrigerated continuously. If they have not been properly handled and refrigerated, say it's a hot summer afternoon, and a truck backs up with some pallets on the back loading dock of a big box store with cat dog vaccines, and it sits out there for a few hours, it's probably not the best thing for you or for your cat or your dog for that matter. The other consideration, I can't tell you how many times I've had clients who tried to give their dogs or cats vaccines, and they shot all the way through because they don't really know or are not comfortable giving a vaccine under the skin. They go all the way through the skin and squirt the entire contents out on the other side of the pet. They just wasted a vaccine unnecessarily. The two big concerns I have are the quality of the vaccines they're going to purchase and also the actual administration of it. In North Carolina, and I can't speak for other states, only veterinarians can purchase rabies vaccines, and only veterinarians, veterinary technicians, and registered individuals by law can legally administer a rabies vaccine.

Good question. My recommendation is with extreme caution. You'd actually have to know your environment really well, but because I am concerned about feline leukemia and distemper in cats, I would personally wait because, typically, we can start these vaccines early and get them completely vaccinated by the time they're about four months of age, you can let them go outside. There's no need to do it beforehand unless you just don't want a cat in the house, and that's the choice. But I recommend that they should be fully vaccinated before letting them go outside.

If a kitten misses a vaccine, at the first opportunity, you bring it to one of our clinics so we can get it up to date.

There's always the potential. With kittens and cats, we seldom see vaccine reactions. In my experience, most of the vaccine reactions I see are associated with the feline leukemia vaccine, which we talked about, which is ideally meant for outdoor cats. However, usually, the biggest side effect we see with the leukemia vaccine is that those cats are kind of sluggish for about half a day, maybe a full day. Then, after that, they're back to being themselves again. The other consideration we always have to think about when we see a cat for vaccines is if they go home and they're just not themselves; you can imagine how incredibly traumatic coming into a veterinary clinic must be for them. We get the carrier, and it might be a complete rodeo trying to get them into the carrier in the first place.

Then you put them in a car, and they're freaked out by the car. Then you bring them into the veterinary practice or one of our events. Then we get the vaccine, they go back in the car, and they have a whole freak out from that. It's an adrenaline overload; it's off the chart. So a lot of those cats just need some time to decompress after a stressful situation like that, but that's not all cats. There are ways of trying to help with that. Quite simply, and I'll mention two things very quickly. One is a product called Feliway, which comes in a spray that you can spray into their carrier, and catnip toys. Just put a catnip toy into their carrier. Those are two things that will help, but an answer to the question, can they get an adverse reaction to vaccines? Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? No, not at all.

Absolutely. Rabies is required by law. Here's the problem. Suppose somebody comes into your house and your cat has never been vaccinated for rabies, and let's say they accidentally stepped on its tail, or they were in a rocking chair and rocked over his tail, and it turned around and bit them. If it's not been vaccinated for rabies, you are legally responsible for making sure that the cat is impounded, at your expense, for ten days through animal control because your cat's not been vaccinated. So again, it is that serious. I'm sure the cat's not showing any signs or symptoms of rabies, but it's just the law, and it's to protect us more than to protect your cat. It's really to protect us because we can get rabies from rabbit animals, dogs and cats included, and it is a life-threatening and deadly disease. If you get rabies, you're going to die.

The other consideration would be the feline distemper vaccine. Even if your cat never goes outside, unfortunately, we can bring in the feline distemper and give it to a cat. The feline distemper virus is very similar to parvovirus in puppies. Parvo is a highly contagious, life-threatening disease if you're not familiar with parvovirus. It's really an ugly death for puppies. That virus is very similar to distemper in cats. Unfortunately, if somebody goes to a dog park and picks up the parvovirus from other dogs on the sole of their shoe and comes back home and goes into a house, they can potentially expose their own cat, and it can be a life-threatening disease. I highly highly recommend every cat, indoor or not, to get the rabies vaccine, as required by law, and also the feline distemper vaccine.

Typically, we'll start when they're about eight weeks of age. We'll start with feline distemper. Sometimes we don't see the kittens when they get eight weeks of age. We might see them at 12 weeks of age or whatever the age. The age at which we see them is going to dictate how many vaccines they get. We know for a fact, for the reasons I've mentioned in our earlier video about colostrum, the mother's milk, and the need for vaccines once the antibodies from mama cat start to get out of their system, that they do need a series of vaccines, but it all depends on what age we start.

The one non-core vaccine is feline leukemia. I think it is crucially important to vaccinate for it, even though it's not considered non-core. The reason I would not consider it non-core is that not every cat needs it. It depends on their lifestyle and the environment they're in. If you've got a cat that goes outside, they definitely should be getting the feline leukemia vaccine. If they never go outside and never come into contact with another cat that goes outside, they don't need the leukemia vaccine. But for those cats that go out, even if they're in and out only going out for short periods of time, they should definitely get the feline leukemia vaccine because it is a life-threatening disease that's primarily spread through saliva and blood exchanged in cat fights or cats that groom one another. In one way, you can consider it non-core because not every cat needs it, but for those cats that do go outside, they 100% should be getting it.

Rabies is required by law for dogs and cats alike, but rabies is a core vaccine along with distemper in cats. Let me clarify distemper in cats because it is quite a misunderstanding. Distemper in cats and distemper in dogs are not the same disease. They are two separate diseases, so it's a little bit confusing. I didn't name them, so don't blame me. They are two different diseases. When we give a distemper vaccine to a cat or kitten, we're not only vaccinating against distemper. We're actually vaccinating against several different diseases in that one vaccine. Another way of putting it is called FVRCP. Sometimes you'll see that on your kitten's or cat's medical record. It stands for feline viral rhinotracheitis, chlamydia, and Calicivirus, so it's a myriad of different diseases that we're vaccine for, which include primarily upper respiratory infections that we see in cats and kittens.

It's very simple. Just keep coming back. Come back at the first opportunity, come to see us, and we'll make sure that we get the vaccines on track. I don't want you to lose sleep if you happen to miss getting the vaccine, but by all means, the best thing that you can do for your puppy is to make sure they're vaccinated because there's nothing more heartbreaking than seeing a puppy that dies from like parvovirus that could have been prevented. The puppy could have been saved. It could have been immunized long before, and you have a heartbroken client who's got this puppy that dies in their arms because they didn't take the time to get them vaccinated. It just rips our hearts out. So again, take care of your puppies, and come to see us at Carolina Value Pet Care. Check our schedule, and we hope to see you soon.

Absolutely. Rabies is required by law. It doesn't matter if they're inside or outside. That's a given. They have to get the rabies vaccine. There's also distemper parvo. Even though your dog never goes outside, you can potentially bring in these viruses. How do you do that? Primarily through like the soles of your shoes. You can pick up the organisms in the environment in the backyard. You go to a neighbor's house, to a park, you go anywhere. Especially if you go to like a dog park, you can easily pick up some of these viruses and bring them back to your dog, even though your dog never goes outside.