Services/Small Animal/Your new Puppy!

If you are thinking of getting a new puppy, please feel free to ask us for advice on breed, and suitability for you and your family. We will be glad to help and look forward to meeting your new pup!

Look out for “Puppy Farms” – unfortunately there are unscrupulous breeders who can be selling puppies that have not been carefully bred or properly socialised or cared for – take care to check up carefully, and see the puppies with their mother, and try to avoid an impulsive purchase.

General Health Check and Vaccinations

We recommend that a vet carries out a general health check on your new puppy within a couple of days of its arrival. It may be possible to coincide this with the first vaccination.

Puppies require a vaccination course of two injections which can start any time from six weeks of age.  We normally give the second vaccination four weeks later, with 10 weeks the youngest age the final vaccine can be given. We advise that your puppy is not allowed out until after the second vaccination. However, you puppy may go out in your own garden for toilet training and can mix with other healthy, fully vaccinated friends and family’s dogs within their own gardens. If you are thinking of attending our puppy party to help get your dog socialised with other dogs, and used to coming to the vets, this can be done after first vaccination, provided that all puppies are vaccinated to this level. We will send you and your pup an invitation to the next class!

The most important socialisation time in your pup’s life is from 3 weeks to 16 weeks of age, after which they start to get to be fearful of “new” things they’ve not seen or done before. So it’s important to do plenty of handling of them all over,  get them out and about to meet as many people, animals and experiences as you can!

(Unfortunately we have had to suspend our classes during the Covid pandemic but hope to have them running again as soon as we can)

The puppy vaccination course includes vaccinations against distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis, parainfluenza and parvovirus. We also recommend vaccination against kennel cough if they will be attending kennels, shows or dog training. This can be given to puppies from six weeks of age.  Annual booster vaccinations are required to maintain immunity for your dog.

Worming

Your puppy should have been wormed against roundworms several times before you first collect them. You will need to find out when it was last done and then continue with a good worming plan. 

We advise that your puppy is wormed every month until 6 months old. After that, routine worming should be done every 3 months. This general worming will be against both roundworms and tapeworms. Please contact the surgery for advice on the best worming treatment available. We have easy-to-use scales at the surgery so we can find your pup’s weight for the correct worming dose.

Dog roundworms can affect humans, and so a regular worming program is strongly advised for your safety. Picking up dog faeces will help break the cycle by preventing infective larvae developing.

Fleas and ticks

Most treatments available for protection against fleas are carried out monthly from 6-8 weeks of age. Products are available for use from 2 days of age, if necessary. Some flea treatments are also effective against worms, lungworms and ticks which avoids the need to treat these separately.  

To help break the flea life cycle by killing the eggs and larvae, it is important to remember that your house should also be treated.  

We are seeing ticks in animals that have never been outside Orkney more frequently as time goes by.

Your new Puppy! Images