Healthcare advice for your puppy

Vaccinations and Socialisation

It is very important to vaccinate your puppy to prevent them from contracting some potentially life threatening diseases. The diseases routinely vaccinated against are:

Parainfluenza
Leptospirosis
Distemper
Hepatitis
Parvovirus

The ‘socialisation window’ of puppies is between 6-12 weeks of age. This is the main learning period; therefore it is important that puppies encounter as many new experiences as early as possible if they are to develop into a friendly, confident dog. It is often advisable to start introducing your puppy to other healthy, vaccinated dogs after your puppies 1st vaccination, so that maximum socialisation can take place. Routinely puppies are given their first vaccination between 6-8 weeks of age and then their second at 10 weeks.

Feeding

All commercial puppy feeds are well balanced and contain higher levels of protein and calcium for your growing puppy. If you need to change your puppy’s diet, do so gradually, slowly introducing the new feeding regime. At 8-10 weeks, your pup should be receiving 4 feeds/day. This can be reduced to 3 feeds/day at 12 weeks and by 6 months 2 meals/day should be sufficient.

Fleas

Preventative treatment against fleas will stop your puppy from getting a potential infestation. If your puppy has fleas they may show signs of being very itchy and irritable, suddenly turning around and biting them selves. When searching through the coat of your puppy, you may be able to spot the fleas, but more likely you will notice small black specks (flea dirts). When placed on white paper and dampened with water, these flea dirts will create a red spot, as they are composed of dried blood.

Worming

Roundworms, tapeworms, hookworms and whipworms are all internal parasites that could potentially cause clinical signs in your puppy.

Round worms such as Toxacara canis can cause disease in young puppies. They are acquired from the mother at around day 40-42 of pregnancy and after birth; pups are infected via milk and the environment. Round worms can cause diarrhoea, pot belly and general poor growth. In addition, round worm infections are zoonotic (can spread to humans) and the migration of larvae can cause serious disease. Therefore a rigorous worming protocol is advised.

Neutering

Unless you are considering breeding from your puppy at a later stage, there are many advantages to having your pet neutered:

Females

Social reasons (preventing seasons)
Prevention of mammary tumours (spaying reduces the incidence of mammary tumours if performed early in the bitch’s life).
Ovarian disease
Uterine disease (e.g. pyometra – uterine infection)
Hormonally responsive vaginal disease

Males

Social reasons (prevention of pregnancy, undesirable sexual behaviour, dominance)
Scrotal/testicular neoplasia
Hormonally responsive conditions (prostatic disease, perianal adenoma)