Notes From Triage

Your Yearly Prevention Plan (keep this bookmarked)

Preventative care is not about being perfect, it’s about being consistent. When we keep vaccines, parasite prevention, and routine screening on track, we catch problems earlier, we can prevent the expensive stuff, and we avoid the “I wish I knew sooner” moments that feel awful.

Think of this as a yearly reset, like setting up your calendar, your budget, your reminders, your life, but for your pet’s health.

Step 1: Pick your “Preventative Care Month”

Choose one month where you always do your yearly checkup. A lot of people pick January because it matches the New Year energy, others pick their pet’s adoption month or birthday month.

What matters is that you pick one month you’ll remember, because the best plan is the one you actually follow.

*Quick tip: If you have multiple pets, stagger them by month so you’re not doing everything at once which can be emotionally and financially overwhelming.

Step 2: Vaccines, simplified (what you actually need to know)

Vaccines aren’t one-size-fits-all, and that’s where people get overwhelmed. The easiest way to think about them, is to split them into two categories:

Core vaccines (most pets need these)

These protect against diseases that are common, serious, or easily spread.

• Dogs: core vaccines often include rabies and distemper/parvo combination (your vet may call it DAPP, DA₂PP or DHPP).
• Cats: core vaccines often include rabies and FVRCP (upper respiratory virus combo).

Lifestyle-based vaccines (depends on your pet’s activites, environments, and interactions)

These are based on exposure risk. Your vet will recommend these based on where your pet goes and what they come into contact with.

• Dog examples: boarding, grooming, daycare, hiking, tick-heavy areas, wildlife exposure
• Cat examples: indoor-only vs indoor/outdoor, multi-cat households, new cats coming and going

The goal: ask your vet, “What are the core vaccines for my pet, and which ones would be lifestyle for my pet, based on our actual life?”

That question alone cuts through so much confusion.

Step 3: Parasite prevention (this is the part people skip, then regret)

Parasites don’t wait for warm weather, and depending on where you live, some are a year-round problem. Prevention also isn’t just about comfort, it’s about disease prevention, and in some cases, protecting your home and your family too.

The 4 big categories

• Heartworm prevention (primarily dogs, sometimes cats depending on risk and region)
• Flea prevention
• Tick prevention
• Gastro-intestinal parasite prevention

Some products cover multiple categories, some don’t, and some are better fits depending on your pet’s size, species, health history, and lifestyle.

The goal here isn’t to pick the “best brand on the internet.” The goal is to pick a plan you can maintain consistently, because gaps are where problems sneak in.

Step 4: Your yearly “baseline” tests (the quiet lifesavers)

A lot of health issues don’t show up as obvious symptoms until later. Routine screening gives you a baseline, so if something changes, we can spot it earlier.

Depending on your pet’s age and risk factors, this may include:

• Annual fecal test (intestinal parasites)
• Heartworm test (dogs on prevention still need testing per veterinary guidance but typically once per year)
• Routine bloodwork (especially for adults, seniors, pets on long-term meds, or pets with chronic conditions)
• Urinalysis (often recommended as pets age)

This is where prevention becomes real, because it shifts you from guessing to knowing.

Step 5: Build your simple calendar (the part that makes it all work)

Here’s the easiest way to make this plan stick:

Set 3 reminders right now

1. Yearly wellness visit month (one reminder a month before, one the week of)
2. Monthly prevention reminder (flea/tick/heartworm, whatever applies)
3. Reorder reminder (set it for 1 week before you run out)

If you’re like me and you’re juggling a million things, reminders aren’t “extra,” they’re the system.

Step 6: What to ask at your appointment (copy these questions)

If you’ve ever left an appointment thinking, “I forgot what I wanted to ask,” this is for you.

• “What vaccines are core for my pet, and what’s lifestyle-based for us?”
• “Based on where we live, should parasite prevention be seasonal or year-round?”
• “What parasites are most common in our area right now?”
• “What routine tests do you recommend this year, and why?”
• and if cost is a factor, “What are the top priorities so I can phase things in?”

That last questions tends to matter more thatn people will admit. Your vet team would rather help you build a realistic plan than watch you avoid care completely because it feels too expensive or too overwhelming.

If you’re making New Year goals right now, let this be one of them! You can build a prevention plan once, then let it run in the background while you enjoy spending time with your pets. Calm, consistent, and confident, that’s the energy.

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A gentle reminder

This post is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice! Your pet’s history and active symptoms matter. You can absolutely use this as a template to walk into your pet’s next appointment prepared, and use it to build a plan that makes sense for both you and your pet.

If you want, I’m going to keep creating these posts all year, one topic at a time, so pet owners can feel informed about preventative and wellness care, not intimidated by it.

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