Cat & Kitten Vaccinations

Video Transcript

"So I wanted to go ahead and go over vaccinations with Kim and talk about what we think is necessary for cats that are kept inside. So has this cat had any vaccines yet? No. Okay. We're going to start a vaccine program today. And we kind of gage all of our vaccination programs on where your cat's going to be and how your cat is exposed to other diseases. People that keep your cats inside like you've recommended, or like you said you're going to eliminate some of the vaccines that we don't need to give all the time. Other vaccines are so important because they carry human health hazards with them that they're mandatory whether they're in the house or not. Other vaccines we give them to the cats and they're covering them for a lethal disease. If they get feline aids or feline leukemia they die of it. And so that's why we think those are vaccines that really should be done on all cats. So let's just start out and go through the different ones that we're going to do today. We have what we call a distemper shot and that covers the upper respiratory as well as a couple of other common diseases that all cats need to be protected from. The distemper actually is part of it that prevents them from getting this distemper problem where cats get panleukopenia. Panleukopenia simply means that because they get this virus all their waste cells die out and they can die of that. So it's very, very lethal to cats and it's going to be one of the ones we cover today. The other thing that we wanted to do today s the distemper shot, in addition to the distemper shot I mean is to get your cat started on a leukemia program. Again, leukemia is a disease that if your cat gets it they die of it and so we want to get your cat started on this vaccine right away to prevent your cat from getting it. It's transmitted by another cat biting your cat and so you've limited the cats exposure to it by keeping him inside. But we think that a marauder cat could break in or in a rainstorm your cat could get out and you don't know it and get bitten by another cat and this way they're always protected. If it was a virus that just made your cat sick for a little while and it had to be transmitted by another cat we may not do it but this is a lethal virus that could kill your cat so we think it's important. Later we're going to do some other vaccines. When we talk about other vaccines at our next visit we're going to want to also update your cat and get him started on a rabies program. Rabies is another virus that can be transmitted from the wildlife into our cats and dogs. And it's lethal for humans as well as cats. And so again we think all cats should be vaccinated for rabies because if your cat were to get rabies chasing a bat or something like that and to bite you then you'd have to get the shots and everything. So it's a lethal, another lethal disease but also it has a human health aspect to it, too, because we can get it. So those are the basic vaccines that we think that all cats should have. There are a few other vaccines so if you start letting your cat out then we should talk about those but since your cat's going to be inside as we recommended with most, we won’t deal with that today. I wanted to give you this brochure. This talks about feline aids, it's one of the diseases that we're discussing today and I want you to read through that and if you have any questions about it. Now this is the one about leukemia. Leukemia is the disease we talked about that's lethal and we want you to have this brochure so that you can go ahead and read through that."