What should I ask my veterinarian at my puppy’s first appointment?

Well, first thing I would say is write any questions you have down. A lot of times that would vary when you bring the puppy in, but lifestyle. Hey, I plan to go hiking with my pet. I plan to go to the beach more often with my pet. I plan to be indoors more. What kind of modifications to their preventative care would we need? Other things are if you're considering breeding, what that entails. What are some complications that can occur later on in life if they're not fixed. How to find your dog if they're lost. Microchips are a great way. So a lot of these questions I would say are good questions. So sit down, take some time to think of things to ask your veterinarian and go from there.

The very first question that you should ask is what kind of vaccine schedule your puppy should have. It really depends on how many vaccines the puppy has received prior to coming to see us. So please make sure to bring all the records that you received from your breeder or adoption place so we can formulate the schedule specifically for your puppy's needs.
Another question to ask is what kind of vaccines your puppy should get. There are some core vaccines that every puppy should get, including rabies and distemper. There are other vaccines we recommend for certain puppies that go outside more often or go to the countryside and potentially get exposed to the ticks. So please let us know what the lifestyle of your puppy will be and we can start to formulate a vaccine schedule catered to your puppy.
You should also ask what kind of heartworm prevention or flea and tick prevention your puppy should get. Also, be sure to mention any training problems that you have, whether it's potty training or biting issues.
Make sure to find out when you should get your puppy spayed or neutered. That's a very good question. It really depends on the breed and size of your puppies, especially large breed puppies. We're starting to recommend that you may want to wait to spay and neuter your dog later because there's a medical benefit from it, but again, it really depends on the size and the breed of your puppy. So of course, please ask us a question about when would be the best time to neuter or spay your puppy.
Oral care is also very important to address, as you need to train your puppy so they can get used to being their teeth brushed. So please ask that question. And let's see, the next question would be, how often does my puppy need to go to the veterinarian? And again, that really depends on how many vaccines they've received before. In the case of distemper shots, we like to see your puppy get the vaccines three to four times, depending on when the first vaccine was started. So depending on that, we'll formulate the schedule specifically for your puppy. It will usually be about two to three times, depending on how many times the vaccine was given to the puppy.
You’ll also want to know what your vet will be examining during the puppy visit. We basically examine everything from head to toe. We're looking for anything that's orthopedic related—are the joints and long bones are they growing nicely? Does the pup have any pain? We make sure the belly feels great. Are the baby teeth coming in nicely? We check the ears, eyes, heart, and, most importantly, we make sure the puppy does not have a heart murmur. So we check everything.
And lastly, oral care—it’s very important to train your puppy so he or she can get used to being their teeth brushed. So please ask your veterinarian about how to best handle your puppy’s oral care.

I think it's important for you not to have to ask questions for your veterinarian, as it’s on us to provide you with a lot of information. Then, we’re going to ask specific questions about how your puppy is doing. It’s our responsibility to make sure that you're well-educated and have all the information that you need.

As far as the vaccines go, ensure that your puppy is up to date and considered protected. And then, we also always want to know about everything that we can do to try and prevent fleas and heartworms and get them started on prevention.

So, those are a couple of things you want to see and just the basics as far as how things are going at home. That's going to be things like crate training, house training, what kind of food to have your puppy on, any kind of collars and toys that we can recommend. We have a lot of information because, as you can see, we have some big puppies of our own, and so we have experience in that field, and we can hopefully help give you some answers that'll make you feel more comfortable.