Puppy First-Year Guide in Surrey

Bringing Your Puppy Home

Before They Arrive

Decide where the puppy sleeps and where it eats before it walks in, because changing those later confuses everyone. Get a crate sized so the adult dog can stand, turn, and lie down, a collar with an identification tag, a lead, food and water bowls, and enough of whatever food the breeder or shelter has been feeding to last a week.

Then go round the house at puppy height. Electrical cords, cleaning products, house plants, small toys, hair ties, socks, and anything that fits in a mouth all need moving. Block off stairs and any gap behind a fence a small animal could push through. Check the garden for mushrooms, which matters more here than in most places and is covered in the Local Health Notes below.

The First Week

Keep the first week quiet. A new puppy has just lost its mother, its littermates, and everything familiar all at once, and most behaviour in the first few days is about that rather than about you. Stay with the food it arrived on and change over gradually if you want to switch. Expect broken nights, and expect loose stool from the stress of moving.

Take your puppy out to the same spot after every sleep, every meal, and every play session, and praise the moment it finishes rather than once you are back inside. Start handling the paws, ears, and mouth for a few seconds at a time now, while it is easy.

Book the first wellness visit in the first week if you can. Bring any records you were given and a fresh stool sample. We will do a full physical examination, weigh your puppy, go through the vaccine and parasite plan, and answer whatever has come up in the first few days. Call (604) 501-0077 or book online. Learn more about our Wellness Program

At-a-Glance Vaccine Schedule

This is the standard core schedule for a puppy in British Columbia. Yours may differ depending on what it has already had and how old it was when you got it, so treat this as the shape of the plan rather than a fixed calendar.

Keep the record card somewhere you will find it. Boarding kennels, daycares, groomers, and training classes all ask for it, and reconstructing a schedule from memory is harder than it sounds.

Important Note on Lifestyle Vaccines

Core vaccines go to every dog. Lifestyle vaccines depend on where your dog goes and what it does, and the honest answer here is specific to this region rather than to Canada generally.

Leptospirosis is the one that matters most in Surrey. British Columbia’s provincial canine leptospirosis surveillance recorded six confirmed cases in 2018 and nine in 2019, and Surrey is one of the Lower Mainland municipalities named in that surveillance. Most cases fell in the autumn. The documented reservoir in Metro Vancouver is rats. A twelve-month study of Norway rats in Vancouver found that eleven percent carried the bacteria, which they shed in urine without appearing unwell themselves. A national study of more than ten thousand canine test results found that dogs under one year of age were about twice as likely to test positive, toy breeds more than three times as likely, and urban dogs more likely than rural ones, with cases peaking between September and December. North American guidelines reclassified this vaccine from non-core to core in 2022, on the reasoning that any dog going outdoors in any setting can be exposed. We follow that, and the local surveillance supports it.

Bordetella is worth having if your dog will board, attend daycare, go to a training class, or spend time around groups of other dogs. It reduces illness rather than preventing every infection, and a respiratory outbreak in the British Columbia interior in 2021 appeared to involve something the current vaccine does not cover, so it reduces illness rather than removing the risk.

Heartworm is different here, and most generic guides get this wrong. Heartworm is not established in the Lower Mainland. Within British Columbia only the southern Okanagan is considered endemic, and provincial prevalence sits below one percent. For a dog that lives in Surrey and does not travel, heartworm is a travel and importation question rather than a local one. If your dog will travel to the southern Okanagan, elsewhere in Canada, or outside the country, or if it was adopted from an endemic area, tell us and we will plan prevention and testing around that. Otherwise this is not the local threat it is often described as.

Lyme vaccination is not routine here. The western black-legged tick is established on the British Columbia coast, including the Lower Mainland, so a tick check after a trail walk is worth doing. Risk here is genuinely lower than in eastern Canada: provincial testing in 2025 found under one percent of these ticks carried the Lyme bacteria, and British Columbia reported 42 human cases that year.

Spay and Neuter

There is no single right age, and the honest version is that timing is a trade-off rather than a clean answer. Removing the ovaries and uterus eliminates the risk of pyometra, a serious uterine infection common in older unspayed dogs, and reduces mammary cancer risk substantially if done before the first heat. Waiting, in a large breed, lets the growth plates close and may be better for the joints. Both things are true at once.

Surrey permits a maximum of three dogs over eight weeks of age per property, so an accidental litter is a practical problem as well as a medical one.

We perform both procedures here. Every patient has a physical examination and recommended pre-anaesthetic bloodwork first, receives an anaesthetic plan matched to its age and weight rather than a fixed dose, and is monitored continuously by a team member throughout, with heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, oxygen levels, and temperature all tracked. Pain control starts before the first incision rather than after waking. Learn more about our Surgical Services

Nutrition for Your Puppy’s First Year

Start with the bag. Look for a statement that the food is complete and balanced for growth, or for all life stages, formulated to AAFCO standards. That one sentence tells you more than the photographs on the front.

Then match the formula to expected adult size. Large and giant breed puppy foods deliberately control calcium and energy density, because a puppy that grows too fast puts its developing joints under strain. Feeding an adult maintenance food to a growing puppy, or a small breed formula to a future Great Dane, both cause problems that are easier to avoid than to fix.

• Up to 4 months: three to four meals a day, measured rather than estimated.
• 4 to 6 months: three meals a day.
• 6 to 12 months: two meals a day.
• Treats: keep everything outside the main meals to a small fraction of the daily total, and subtract it from the meals rather than adding it on top.

Weigh your puppy at every visit. A growth curve tells us far more than a single number, and it is the earliest warning of either direction going wrong.

Some puppies need a therapeutic diet, meaning a food formulated for a specific health condition such as a digestive problem, a food sensitivity, or a developmental issue. If your puppy needs one we will explain why, how long for, and what to do about the other animals in the house who will try to steal it. Learn more about our Nutrition Counselling

Parasites: What to Know

Puppies arrive with parasites more often than not, and most of it is routine rather than alarming.

Intestinal worms. Roundworms pass from the mother before birth and through her milk, so a puppy can be infected before you ever meet it. Deworming usually runs every two weeks until twelve weeks of age, then monthly until six months. We check a stool sample at the puppy visits rather than working blind, because products differ in what they cover.

Giardia. Giardia was found in 2.2 percent of dogs tested in British Columbia in a national study, rising to 5.5 percent in dogs under a year old. As few as ten cysts can establish an infection, and the cysts survive ordinary water chlorination. It causes loose, foul-smelling stool and is picked up from contaminated water, which in practice means puddles, creeks, and shared water bowls. Discourage drinking from standing water on walks.

Fleas and ticks. Fleas are a year-round reality in the mild, wet Lower Mainland and do not stop in winter. The western black-legged tick is established on the British Columbia coast, including the Lower Mainland, so a tick check after a trail walk is worth doing. Risk here is genuinely lower than in eastern Canada: provincial testing in 2025 found under one percent of these ticks carried the Lyme bacteria, and British Columbia reported 42 human cases that year. Run your hands over your dog after a trail walk, paying attention to the head, ears, neck, and between the toes, and ask us how to remove one properly rather than pulling.

Heartworm. See the lifestyle vaccine section above. This is a travel question here rather than a local one.

Family safety. Some intestinal parasites can pass to people, and young children are the most exposed because of where their hands go. Pick up after your dog promptly, wash hands after handling stool or soil, and keep sandpits covered. This is a reason for routine stool checks rather than a reason to worry. Learn more about our Pet Diagnostics

House Training

House training is a routine problem rather than a discipline problem. A puppy can hold its bladder for roughly one hour per month of age, so an eight-week-old puppy genuinely cannot last three hours, and punishing an accident teaches it to hide rather than to wait.

Take your puppy out after every sleep, every meal, every drink, and every play session, and at least once more than you think is necessary. Go to the same spot, wait, and praise the instant it finishes rather than once you are back indoors. Clean accidents with an enzymatic cleaner, because anything ammonia-based smells like a toilet to a dog.

Crate training. A crate is a bed, not a punishment, and introducing it that way decides whether it works. Feed meals in it with the door open, put a blanket and a chew inside, and build up from seconds to minutes with you in the room. Never use it as a consequence. Most dogs end up treating a crate as the place they go to be left alone, which is useful for the rest of their lives, including every time they need to be confined after a procedure.

If house training is still not working at five or six months, or if a trained puppy starts having accidents again, tell us. Urinary infections and other medical causes look exactly like a training failure from the outside.

Socialisation and Cooperative Care

The socialisation window runs from roughly three to twelve weeks, with some flexibility either side, and it closes whether or not you used it. What a puppy meets calmly in that period tends to stay unremarkable for life. What it never meets can become frightening later, and undoing that is far harder than preventing it.

The complication is that the window closes before the vaccine series finishes. The answer is selective exposure rather than no exposure:

• Carry your puppy to busy places so it sees traffic, bicycles, buggies, umbrellas, and crowds from your arms.
• Invite vaccinated adult dogs you know to meet it in your own garden.
• Let it walk on different surfaces: tile, carpet, grass, gravel, metal, a wobbly board.
• Introduce hats, high-visibility jackets, beards, walking sticks, wheelchairs, and people of different ages and appearances.
• Record household sounds and play them quietly: the vacuum, the doorbell, fireworks, a thunderstorm.

Gentling and cooperative care. Spend a minute a day handling the paws, looking in the ears, lifting the lip, and running a hand along the belly, finishing before your puppy has had enough rather than after. This is the single most useful thing you can do for every future visit here, and it is why some ten-year-old dogs are examined in a lap while others need sedation for a nail trim. Pair each handling session with something your puppy likes, so being touched predicts good things.

For socialisation and training help, the BC SPCA’s AnimalKind directory lists trainers accredited to a published humane standard, and two of them serve Surrey. We point you at the directory rather than at a particular business, because it stays current and the standard is the part that matters. Ask us as well, since we see which approaches work for nervous animals.

Children and Other Pets

Children

Teach the child before you teach the dog. A puppy is not a toy, and the rules that prevent most bites are simple: do not disturb a sleeping or eating dog, do not take things from its mouth, do not hug or lie on it, and stop stroking when it moves away. Supervise every interaction between a young child and a puppy, every time, without exception.

Show children what a dog looks like when it has had enough: turning away, lip-licking, yawning, showing the whites of the eyes, a stiff body, a tucked tail. A dog that is ignored at that stage is a dog that eventually escalates. Give your puppy somewhere the children cannot follow, and enforce it.

Other Dogs

Introduce on neutral ground rather than in the resident dog’s home, on loose leads, walking in the same direction before meeting face to face. Keep the first meeting short and end it while both dogs are still relaxed.

At home, feed separately, provide one more bed and water bowl than you have dogs, and pick up high-value chews when you are not watching. Expect the adult dog to tell the puppy off, which is normal and useful; a brief noisy correction with no injury is communication. Step in if it does not stop, if the puppy cannot get away, or if the adult dog is not settling down over the following weeks.

Cats

Give the cat the upper hand from the start. Install a baby gate, let them smell each other under a door for several days, and swap bedding between them before they meet. Make sure the cat has vertical escape routes and a litter box the puppy cannot reach, since a cat that feels cornered at its own litter box will stop using it.

Keep the puppy on a lead for the first face-to-face meetings so it cannot chase. Chasing is self-rewarding and becomes a habit quickly. Most cats and dogs reach a workable arrangement within a few weeks, and the ones that do not are usually the ones where the cat never had a way out.

Foreign-Body Ingestion Hazards

Puppies swallow things. It is the single most common reason a young dog ends up needing surgery, and the objects are almost always ordinary household items.

• Socks, underwear, and face cloths
• Corn cobs, peach stones, and cooked bones
• Hair ties, elastic bands, and dental floss
• Squeakers and stuffing from destroyed toys
• Rocks, mulch, and bark chips
• Nipples from bottles and small parts from children’s toys

Signs of a blockage. Repeated vomiting, refusing food, a painful or tense abdomen, lethargy, straining without producing stool, or drooling. A puppy that vomits once and is otherwise bright is usually fine; a puppy that keeps vomiting and will not eat needs seeing the same day.

String and thread deserve a separate warning. If you can see thread at the mouth or the rear, do not pull it. A linear foreign body can anchor at one end and saw through the intestine, and pulling makes that worse. Call us.

Call (604) 501-0077 if you think your puppy has swallowed something, rather than waiting to see what happens. Timing changes how much of this we can resolve without opening the abdomen. Learn more about our Urgent Care

Holiday and Household Hazards

Foods that are dangerous to dogs. Grapes and raisins, which can cause kidney failure in small amounts; chocolate; onions, garlic, leeks, and chives; xylitol and other sugar substitutes, which appear in sugar-free gum, peanut butter, and baked goods; macadamia nuts; alcohol; raw bread dough; and cooked bones.

Plants. Sago palm, oleander, azalea and rhododendron, daffodil and tulip bulbs, yew, foxglove, and cyclamen. Mushrooms in the garden deserve their own mention and are covered in the Local Health Notes below, because this region has a specific problem.

Household items. Antifreeze, which tastes sweet and is lethal in very small quantities; rat and slug bait; human pain relief tablets and other human health products, which are dangerous to dogs at doses that are fine for people; cannabis in any form, including edibles; batteries; and anything scented and plugged into a wall.

Seasonal. Chocolate and raisins at Christmas and Easter. Fireworks around Halloween and New Year, which is a behaviour problem rather than a toxic one but a real one. Tinsel and ribbon. Turkey bones and fat trimmings. Rat bait put down in autumn when rodents come indoors, which is also when leptospirosis cases peak here.

If your puppy eats something it should not have, call (604) 501-0077 straight away rather than waiting for symptoms. Bring the packaging or a photograph of it if you can. Do not try to make your dog vomit unless a veterinarian has specifically told you to.

Puppy Dental and Developmental Notes

Several things we look for in the first year are developmental rather than infectious, and most are easiest to deal with early.

Deciduous teeth and teething. Puppies have 28 baby teeth, which start falling out around four months as the 42 adult teeth come through. Expect chewing, some blood on toys, and the occasional tooth found on the floor. Give appropriate chew objects rather than trying to stop the behaviour, and avoid anything harder than the teeth themselves.

Retained deciduous teeth. Sometimes a baby tooth does not fall out and sits alongside its adult replacement. That crowds the mouth, traps food and hair against the gum, and starts periodontal disease early. It is most common in small breeds and usually needs the retained tooth removed. Learn more about our Dental Care

Malocclusion. If the upper and lower jaws do not meet correctly, teeth can strike the opposite gum or palate and cause genuine pain. Some malocclusions are breed-normal and some need intervention, and the difference matters. We assess the bite as the adult teeth come in.

Umbilical and inguinal hernias. A soft swelling at the navel is a common finding in puppies. Many small umbilical hernias close on their own; larger ones and inguinal hernias usually need repairing, and that is often done at the same time as a spay or neuter so there is only one anaesthetic.

Cryptorchidism. In male puppies both testicles should have descended by around eight weeks, and certainly by six months. If one or both have not, they need removing rather than leaving, because a retained testicle has a meaningfully higher cancer risk. The procedure is longer than a routine neuter and we will explain the difference beforehand.

Grooming Basics

Start grooming before your puppy needs it. A dog that learns at twelve weeks that brushing is pleasant is a dog that is still easy to groom at twelve years.

• Brushing: a few minutes daily for long or double coats, weekly for short ones. Mats form from the skin outwards, so a quick surface brush misses where the problem starts.
• Nails: every three to four weeks. Handle the paws daily even when you are not cutting, and take one nail at a time if that is all the puppy allows.
• Ears: check weekly. Clean only when needed and ask us to show you how far is far enough.
• Teeth: introduce a brush now. Let your puppy lick the paste off your finger for a few days, then touch the teeth, then brush for a few seconds. Aim at the outer surfaces along the gum line.
• Baths: only as needed, with a product made for dogs.

Professional grooming by coat type. Poodles, doodles, bichons, and other continuously growing coats need a professional groom every six to eight weeks, and the first one should happen at around four months while it is still a novelty. Double-coated breeds such as huskies and German shepherds need de-shedding rather than clipping. Short-coated breeds may never need a professional groom at all.

Some dogs cannot be groomed at a salon: a severely matted coat, a painful skin condition, an arthritic or anxious animal, or one that will not tolerate handling. We offer grooming in a clinical setting for exactly those cases, with sedation available where it is kinder and with anything found under the coat assessed the same day. Learn more about our Medical Grooming Services

Local Health Notes

This section is specific to Surrey and the Lower Mainland. Several widely repeated pieces of Canadian puppy advice do not apply here, and a couple of local risks are not mentioned in national guides at all.

Leptospirosis. British Columbia’s provincial canine leptospirosis surveillance recorded six confirmed cases in 2018 and nine in 2019, and Surrey is one of the Lower Mainland municipalities named in that surveillance. Most cases fell in the autumn. The documented reservoir in Metro Vancouver is rats. A twelve-month study of Norway rats in Vancouver found that eleven percent carried the bacteria, which they shed in urine without appearing unwell themselves. A national study of more than ten thousand canine test results found that dogs under one year of age were about twice as likely to test positive, toy breeds more than three times as likely, and urban dogs more likely than rural ones, with cases peaking between September and December. Taken together that describes a young urban dog in autumn, which is why we raise the vaccine at the puppy visit rather than waiting to be asked.

Death cap mushrooms. Death cap mushrooms are established in the Lower Mainland, with more than a hundred recorded sightings between Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. They fruit from late August into early November, grow in urban areas under introduced trees such as beech, chestnut, hornbeam and English oak, and the BC Centre for Disease Control describes them as especially dangerous to children and pets. Walk your garden and your usual routes between late summer and the first hard frost, and remove what you find. If your dog eats an unknown mushroom, call us immediately and bring a sample or a photograph. This is one of the few genuinely local hazards that most puppy guides never mention.

Heartworm, which is not the local problem it is usually described as. Heartworm is not established in the Lower Mainland. Within British Columbia only the southern Okanagan is considered endemic, and provincial prevalence sits below one percent. For a dog that lives in Surrey and does not travel, heartworm is a travel and importation question rather than a local one.

Rabies. Bats are the only rabies reservoir in British Columbia. There has not been a case in a domestic dog in the province since 1960, and spillover into other mammals has been rare and isolated. Rabies vaccination is recommended in British Columbia but, unlike Ontario, it is not required by provincial law and it does not appear in Surrey’s animal bylaw. We still recommend it. Vaccination status matters a great deal in how a bat encounter is managed afterwards, and bats do get into houses here.

Ticks and Lyme. The western black-legged tick is established on the British Columbia coast, including the Lower Mainland, so a tick check after a trail walk is worth doing. Risk here is genuinely lower than in eastern Canada: provincial testing in 2025 found under one percent of these ticks carried the Lyme bacteria, and British Columbia reported 42 human cases that year.

Coyotes. The BC SPCA estimates two to three thousand urban coyotes live in the Lower Mainland, and the City of Surrey lists coyotes among the wildlife in Tynehead Regional Park. Supervise your dog outdoors, keep it in from dusk until dawn, never let it chase a coyote, and do not leave food out. A small dog alone in a garden at dusk is the situation that goes wrong.

Off-leash areas and water. Surrey has nineteen off-leash areas, all open dawn until dusk. Four are in Newton: Joe Brown Park on 125A Street, Panorama Park on 60 Avenue, Serpentine Dog Off-Leash Park on 76 Avenue, and Unwin Park on 134 Street. Bear Creek Park’s fenced area is on King George Boulevard a short drive north of us. Nicomekl Dog Off-Leash in South Surrey is the only one the City lists as having river water access, which is worth knowing given the leptospirosis and giardia picture above. Surrey defines a leash as no longer than two metres. A dog is considered at large if it is in a park, on a beach, or on a road without being leashed to a competent person, except in a designated off-leash area.

Salmon and the Serpentine. Tynehead Regional Park in Guildford covers 260 hectares along the headwaters of the Serpentine River and has a fenced off-leash area with a 750 metre pathway. Salmon spawn there between October and December and are visible from the trails and the viewing platforms near the fish hatchery. Raw salmon carries a fluke that can transmit a serious and sometimes fatal illness to dogs. The documented British Columbia cases have been on Vancouver Island rather than the mainland, so we are not describing a known Surrey outbreak. The precaution still stands: do not let your dog eat raw salmon or scavenge a carcass from a creek bank, and cook or freeze any fish solid before it goes anywhere near a dog bowl.

Swimming. Fraser Health publishes beach conditions and swimming advisories for this region. The advice is written for people rather than for dogs, but an advisory or closure is a good reason to keep your dog out of the water too.

Surrey bylaw, in plain terms. A dog licence is legally required in Surrey for any dog over three months of age under the Surrey Animal Responsibility Bylaw. The licence year runs January to December and renewals are due by 2 February. Current fees are $90.50 for an unaltered dog and $58.00 for a spayed or neutered dog, with reduced rates of $45.25 and $29.00 for owners aged 65 and over. An unlicensed dog can be impounded. Surrey permits a maximum of six companion animals per property, of which no more than three may be dogs over eight weeks and no more than five may be cats over twelve weeks.

Giardia. Giardia was found in 2.2 percent of dogs tested in British Columbia in a national study, rising to 5.5 percent in dogs under a year old. As few as ten cysts can establish an infection, and the cysts survive ordinary water chlorination. Discourage puddle drinking, particularly at shared off-leash areas.

Low-Stress Veterinary Visits

Before the Visit

Leave the carrier or the car harness out at home as ordinary furniture rather than producing it on the day. Take your puppy on short car journeys that end somewhere good, so the car does not only ever mean the clinic. Skip the meal before a visit if your puppy is food motivated, and bring something it loves.

Tell us when you book if your puppy is nervous, reactive to other dogs, or sore anywhere. We can give you a quieter appointment time, take you straight to a room, or plan the visit differently. Call (604) 501-0077.

In the Clinic

We examine puppies on the floor, on a lap, or on a mat rather than on a steel table wherever that works better. Treats go throughout rather than at the end. If your puppy has had enough we would rather stop and finish another day than win the argument.

Your own calm does more than anything we do. Dogs read handlers closely, and a tense lead and a high, worried voice both tell a puppy that something bad is coming. Breathe, talk normally, and let us do the handling.

Happy Visits

Bring your puppy in for nothing at all. Walk through the door, let it get a treat and a fuss from whoever is at the desk, stand on the scale, and leave again without anything happening to it. Two or three of these in the first few months changes a dog’s view of this building permanently.

No appointment is needed and there is no charge. Just ring (604) 501-0077 first so we can pick a time when the waiting area is quiet. Families in Newton and across Surrey do this regularly and it is one of the better uses of ten minutes we can think of.

When to Contact Us

Call us on (604) 501-0077 whenever you are not sure. We are open seven days a week, Monday to Saturday until 10:00 PM and Sunday until 6:00 PM, and a short phone call costs you nothing. Describing what you are seeing is enough; you do not need to work out what is wrong before you ring.

The lists below are a guide rather than a boundary. If your puppy is doing something that worries you and it is not on either list, call anyway.

Contact Us Same Day For

• Repeated vomiting, or any vomiting with lethargy
• Diarrhoea with blood, or diarrhoea in a puppy under four months
• Refusing food for more than a day, or refusing water at all
• Laboured, noisy, or open-mouthed breathing
• Collapse, seizure, or sudden weakness
• Pale or white gums
• A swollen, tense, or painful abdomen
• Straining to urinate, or producing no urine
• Suspected poisoning, including an unknown mushroom
• Any suspicion your puppy has swallowed something, particularly string
• A wound, a bite from another animal, or uncontrolled bleeding
• A limp that will not bear weight
• An eye that is held shut, cloudy, or visibly injured

Schedule a Routine Appointment For

• The vaccine series and the annual visit afterwards
• Routine deworming and stool checks
• Spay or neuter planning
• Mild, occasional loose stool in an otherwise bright puppy
• Itching, ear scratching, or a head shake that has been going on for a few days
• A retained baby tooth, or a bite that looks wrong
• A lump or swelling that is not painful and is not growing quickly
• Nail trims, anal gland care, and grooming
• House training that is not progressing, or a behaviour question
• Food and feeding questions

Pet Insurance

The best time to arrange pet insurance is before your puppy’s first appointment, and ideally before anything has been written in its medical record. Insurers in Canada do not cover pre-existing conditions, and a note made at a first visit can count as one. A young, healthy puppy is the easiest animal to insure and the cheapest.

Providers operating in Canada include Trupanion, Pets Plus Us, Petsecure, Economical, and Intact. This list is offered for information only and is not an endorsement of any provider. We have no financial relationship with any insurer, and we do not receive anything if you choose one over another.

Things worth comparing before you buy: whether the annual limit is per condition or overall, whether dental care is included, how the deductible works, whether the premium rises with your pet’s age, and what the waiting period is before cover starts. Ask whoever you choose to put the answers in writing.

Frequently Asked Questions

When should my puppy start vaccinations in Surrey?

Most puppies begin their core series at six to eight weeks and come back every three to four weeks until about sixteen weeks of age. The series matters more than any single appointment, because protection builds in stages as the antibodies a puppy got from its mother fade. A Fraser Valley puppy was confirmed with distemper in 2022 and did not survive, which is a blunt reminder that these are not theoretical diseases here. Call us on (604) 501-0077 and we will set the schedule around your puppy’s age and what it has already had.

When should I spay or neuter my puppy?

It depends on size more than on age. Small and medium breeds are usually done around six months, while large and giant breeds often do better waiting until twelve to eighteen months so the growth plates can close. Waiting has to be weighed against the risk of an accidental litter and, in females, against the mammary cancer risk that rises with each heat cycle. We will give you a recommendation for your individual dog rather than a default date.

Does my puppy need the leptospirosis vaccine in Surrey?

We think so, yes. Provincial surveillance names Surrey among the Lower Mainland municipalities with confirmed canine cases, most of them in autumn, and the documented reservoir in Metro Vancouver is rats rather than wildlife in the countryside. Dogs under a year old are about twice as likely to test positive, and the North American guidelines reclassified this vaccine as core in 2022 on the basis that any dog going outdoors can be exposed. We will talk it through with you at the puppy visit.

How often does a puppy need deworming?

Puppies are usually dewormed every two weeks until twelve weeks of age, then monthly until six months, because roundworms can pass from the mother before birth and through her milk. We check a stool sample at the puppy visits rather than guessing, since not every parasite responds to the same product. Giardia is worth a mention locally: a national study found it in 2.2 percent of dogs tested in British Columbia and in 5.5 percent of dogs under a year old. Wash your hands after picking up after your puppy, particularly if there are young children at home.

What food should I feed my puppy?

Look for a statement on the bag saying the food is complete and balanced for growth to AAFCO standards, and choose a formula built for your dog’s expected adult size. Large breed puppy formulas control calcium and energy density on purpose, because growing too fast is itself a risk to developing joints. Feed three to four meals a day until about four months, then settle to twice daily. Bring the bag or a photograph of the label to your next visit and we will go through it with you. Learn more about our Nutrition Counselling

Can I take my puppy to a Newton off-leash park before it is fully vaccinated?

Not to an off-leash park, no. Until the series is finished at about sixteen weeks your puppy is only partly protected, and parvovirus survives in soil for months. Surrey has four off-leash areas in Newton and they are excellent once your puppy is covered. In the meantime, socialise deliberately but selectively: carry your puppy to see the world, invite vaccinated adult dogs you know to visit, and use your own garden rather than shared ground.

My puppy still has baby teeth at seven months. Is that a problem?

It can be, and it is worth a look. Deciduous teeth normally fall out between four and seven months as the adult teeth come through, and a baby tooth that stays put alongside its adult replacement crowds the mouth and traps food against the gum. Retained deciduous teeth are most common in small breeds and usually need removing. We check the mouth at every puppy visit and will tell you if anything needs doing. Learn more about our Dental Care

Contact Us

City Petcare Hospital & Urgent Care
7218 King George Blvd Ste 120, Surrey, BC V3W 5A5
Phone: (604) 501-0077
Email: citypetcareanimalhospital@gmail.com
Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM. Sunday 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

Disclaimer

This guide is intended for general educational purposes only and does not constitute veterinary medical advice. Always consult a licensed veterinarian for your pet’s individual health needs.