The most common preventive way to take care of your pet's health is to vaccinate kittens. To keep your pet healthy, just follow a few preventive instructions.
What vaccinations do kittens have? The organism that is not susceptible to infection is made from a special composition - serum, which is prepared from the blood of animals with the addition of special medicines that destroy the infection. Or a vaccine is used, which is made from weakened microorganisms, causing the body to produce antibodies to them.
Domestic cats that do not leave the walls of the apartment and do not have contact with other feline representatives also have a chance to catch an infection, despite the widespread belief that this is not so, and all diseases can be caught directly on the street. But in reality, a person himself can bring an infection to his apartment on shoes, on a bag, on clothes, because viruses live on almost any surface, and from the outside there are many unvaccinated animals, homeless people, who are carriers of diseases.
With their secretions (saliva, feces, urine), as well as with the hair, microbes fall on the ground, sand, which you bring to the place where your pet lives with you. All this shows that kittens need vaccinations even because they live at home. Therefore, they can not be neglected in any case.
The most important thing in vaccination
In order for vaccinations of kittens to be successful, most effective and without complications, it is important to follow simple rules:
- It is necessary to ensure that the vaccines are certified, and their origin is not in doubt.
- In order to minimize the risk (both infection and psychological), it is better to vaccinate kittens in their usual habitat.
- Animals are not vaccinated at the age of 16-28 months, since at this time their teeth just change.
- It is unacceptable to vaccinate pregnant and lactating cats so that this does not affect the health of their offspring. Animals are allowed to vaccinate no less than thirty days before mating.
- You must follow the rules of vaccination of your pet, vaccinate at the same time every year . Vaccinations for kittens begin to be done from 2-3 months followed by revaccination. If an adult animal is being treated, then the vaccine is repeated after a couple of weeks.
- Rehabilitation and postoperative time is not the right time for vaccinations, it is prohibited. A cat who has undergone a course of antibiotics can be vaccinated only two weeks after the last dose of the drug.
- It is not necessary to carry out planned operations (castration) within 14 days after vaccination.
- Vaccination of cats that have had contact with sick animals is prohibited.
- Protect your pet during stress vaccination. It should not be done during relocations, change of scenery, new people in the apartment, exhibitions, guests during the week before and after vaccination.
- Only healthy animals can be vaccinated (veterinarian examination needed).
Before vaccination for 2 weeks, deworming and treatment against ectoparasites is necessary. - The vaccination of your cat should be trusted only to a professional veterinarian, as this will reduce the possibility of undesirable consequences.
- After vaccination for about 24 hours, your pet may look lethargic. If this condition lasts more than a day, and other symptoms appear, it is worth contacting a veterinarian.
It is very important to understand that vaccination is not a guarantee that your pet will not catch any infection, it just reduces the likelihood.
There is a widespread opinion among cat owners that an animal with all vaccinations will never get sick and may have contact with any representatives of the animal world, but this opinion is erroneous. Vaccination is prevention, not treatment (exception: vaccines against lichen). For this reason, excessive caution does not hurt, it is worth excluding the contact of your pet with presumably sick and actually infected animals.