Preventive Care: Vaccines and Parasites

Preventive care is comprised of many different components including vaccinations, parasite control, nutrition, dental care, behavior, identification / microchipping, reproductive status, disease screening, and more.

It is not possible to use a “one size fits all” approach to medicine. A 5-kg (11-pound) lap dog Chihuahua that lives in a high-density, downtown urban city will most certainly have different needs than a 30-kg (65-pound) Labrador retriever used for hunting in the rural countryside. It is critical that you learn to gather information to make an informed decision on how a patient’s preventive care plan should be customized. In this module, we will focus on vaccination plans and parasite screening.

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

1. List sources of information to find current vaccination and parasite protocols for canine and feline,
2. Recognize the information that is necessary to design a vaccination or parasite protocol for a given patient,
3. Create a social media post that might generate client engagement, and
4. Practice verbal and non-verbal communication in client encounters.