Get Ready for National Pet Immunization Awareness Month
August is National Pet Immunization Awareness Month, and as a veterinary practice, you should take advantage of the occasion to remind clients to vaccinate their pets and provide information about vaccinations.
Pets, like humans, need protection from certain diseases, and immunizations offer a great way to keep them healthy. Vaccines contain inactivated parts of the pathogens that cause infectious diseases like rabies and Lyme disease. Your pet's immune system recognizes the pathogen and develops a resistance to it, so if it encounters the pathogen again, it can fight it off.
Puppies and kittens should receive core vaccinations between eight and eleven weeks old. For puppies, this means Distemper or Parvovirus, and for kittens, it means the FVRCP vaccine. At a year old, dogs and cats should receive the next in the series for their core vaccines, plus additional vaccines specific to their species. The general rule is that cats and dogs should receive vaccinations about once a year, and August is a good time to remind clients of this. See a full list of recommendations from the Michigan Humane Society.
Promoting Immunization Awareness Month
Like other pet awareness months, National Pet Immunization Awareness Month provides an opportunity for you, as a local veterinarian, to promote your practice and help clients better care for their pets. Here are some ideas for how to get involved in National Pet Immunization Awareness Month:
- Use social media. Promote the event on your social media sites, reminding clients to schedule their immunizations and providing information about the type of immunizations their pets need. You could even host a short video that includes a veterinarian explaining the importance of vaccinations.
- Send reminder cards. Use reminder cards with your clinic's information to invite clients in for pet vaccinations.
- Reach out to the community. You want to foster great relationships with your existing clients, but also with your community and the potential clients in it. Host a free or discounted immunization day to raise awareness about your clinic and what it offers. Be as creative as you like with this event. It could include goodie bags with promotional products for your practice like magnets and pens. You might even host a drawing for free services to get clients in the door.
- Provide expertise to local news outlets. Write a press release a month or so ahead of the awareness month, and include information about vaccinations and your clinic. Offer to be interviewed for upcoming news stories, and establish your clinic as a local expert on pets.
Positive Impressions
Positive Impressions is your go-to place for products that help build your clinic's image and foster great relationships with your clients and their pets. We offer a wide range of customizable products that can help you promote awareness months like National Pet Immunization Awareness Month, stay in touch with your clients and manage day-to-day operations. Check out our occasion cards for pet birthdays, sympathy notes and more. We also offer business cards, customizable bags, calendars and more. Check out our wide range of offerings today!
Sources:
https://www.adventvet.com/national-immunization-awareness-month/
https://www.michiganhumane.org/pet-vaccination-guide/
https://vetmed.tamu.edu/news/pet-talk/august-is-national-immunization-awareness-month/