This is the question we are asked more than any other, usually in the week before collection, usually by somebody who has read four contradictory things.
What follows is how it generally works. Your own veterinarian decides the actual schedule for your actual dog, because it depends on where you live and what is circulating there, and nothing here replaces that conversation.
The chart
Your own veterinarian sets the actual dates, because it depends on where you live and what is circulating there. This is the shape almost every schedule follows.
| Age | Usually given | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| 6 to 8 weeks | First core vaccination. Worming already under way since about two weeks | Us, before the puppy leaves |
| 10 to 12 weeks | Second core dose | You |
| 14 to 16 weeks | Third core dose. This is the one most likely to be the effective one | You |
| Around 12 months | Booster, plus whatever your area calls for | You |
The core vaccines cover distemper, adenovirus and parvovirus, usually combined in one injection. Everything beyond that is situational.
Why the timing is what it is
A newborn puppy is protected by antibodies it gets from its mother in the first day of life. That protection fades over the following weeks, and the rate at which it fades is different in every puppy and cannot be observed from the outside.
Those maternal antibodies also block vaccines. While enough of them remain, a vaccination does very little, because the mother’s antibodies neutralise it before the puppy’s own immune system gets to see it.
So there is a window, usually somewhere between six and sixteen weeks, when the mother’s protection has faded enough for a vaccine to work but not so much that the puppy is unprotected. Nobody can pinpoint that window in an individual dog. That is the entire reason the schedule is a series of doses a few weeks apart rather than one injection: the series is designed so that at least one dose lands after the maternal antibodies have gone.
Understanding that one fact makes the rest of this obvious, including why skipping the last dose is the worst possible corner to cut.
What has already happened before the puppy reaches you
A puppy leaving here at eight weeks has had its first core vaccination, usually somewhere between six and eight weeks, and has been wormed several times on the schedule its age calls for. It has been examined by a veterinarian in the week before it leaves.
You get the record on paper, with the practice details on it. Ring them and check it. That is not us being defensive, it is the single fastest way for a buyer to verify a breeder, and any breeder who is uncomfortable with you doing it has told you something useful.
What you are responsible for
The rest of the series. In broad terms that means further doses a few weeks apart until the puppy is past sixteen weeks, and then a check at around a year.
The core vaccines protect against distemper, adenovirus and parvovirus, usually in one combined injection. Parvovirus is the one that matters most in practice: it survives in the environment for months, it is common, and it kills puppies.
Beyond the core, your vet will advise on what is worth adding based on where you live and what your dog will actually do. Leptospirosis, kennel cough and rabies are all situational rather than universal, and a good conversation with a vet who knows your area beats anything written on the internet.
The mistake almost everybody makes
The gap between the first and last dose is the same period in which a puppy has to meet the world, and those two facts pull in opposite directions.
The disease risk says keep the puppy away from unknown dogs and unknown ground. The behavioural risk says a puppy that meets nothing before sixteen weeks is far more likely to become a fearful adult. Both risks are real, and behavioural problems put more dogs in shelters than parvovirus does.
The way through is not to pick one and ignore the other. It is to socialise deliberately, in low risk ways, from the day the puppy arrives.
- Carry the puppy. A puppy in your arms in a car park, outside a shop, near a bus stop is meeting the world without touching the ground.
- Use your own garden and other people’s gardens, provided their dogs are vaccinated and healthy.
- Invite people to your house rather than taking the puppy to unknown places. Different ages, different voices, hats, beards, walking sticks, umbrellas.
- Drive somewhere and sit in the car with the windows down. Traffic, sirens, dogs at a distance, all with no ground contact at all.
- Ask your vet about a well run puppy class that requires proof of vaccination from every attendee.
What to avoid is the ground in places where a lot of unknown dogs go: public parks, pet shop floors, the grass outside a veterinary practice.
Worming and the microchip
Puppies are wormed repeatedly, starting at about two weeks and continuing every fortnight until roughly twelve weeks, and then on a schedule your vet sets. Roundworm is close to universal in puppies and this is routine rather than a sign that something is wrong.
Flea and tick prevention is a separate conversation and it depends entirely on where you live.
Every puppy leaving here is microchipped and the chip is registered to you at handover, not to us with a promise to transfer it later. Check the registration yourself in the first week. It is a five minute job and it is the difference between a chip that returns your dog and a chip that returns you a phone call from a database with the wrong name on it.
Keep the paperwork
Questions people ask us about all this
Can we skip the last dose if the puppy never leaves the garden? No, and this is the worst corner available to cut. The last dose is the one most likely to be the effective one, because it is the one most likely to land after the mother’s antibodies have gone. Everything before it may have done nothing at all.
What is titre testing? A blood test that measures whether a dog has antibodies to a particular disease. It is genuinely useful for deciding whether an adult dog needs a booster, and much less useful in a puppy part way through a course, because a low result cannot distinguish between a vaccine that has not worked yet and one that will not. Your vet will tell you where it fits.
The puppy was quiet the evening after its injection. Is that normal? Mild tiredness or soreness for a day is common and unremarkable. Facial swelling, repeated vomiting, hives or difficulty breathing are not, and they need a vet immediately.
Can we use a different vet from the breeder’s? Yes, and you should use whichever practice is convenient to you. Take the record with you at the first appointment and they will pick up the course from wherever it has reached.
Everything above is what our own health guarantee commits to in writing. You will need the record for boarding, for classes, for insurance and for the vet you eventually switch to. Photograph it the day it arrives so there is a copy that survives the paper one. Every puppy on our available puppies page leaves with that record already started and the doses given so far written on it.