A First Year Calendar for a New Puppy or Kitten

Bringing home a new puppy or kitten in Richmond or Rosenberg comes with a string of early vet visits that can feel hard to keep straight. Rose-Rich Veterinary Clinic runs both schedules on a fixed set of ages rather than a loose one, which actually makes it easier to plan around once you see the whole calendar laid out.

Puppies: six weeks to sixteen weeks

The puppy series runs in four visits. P1 happens around six weeks old and includes a wellness exam, a DHPP vaccine, a fecal test, and starting a heartworm preventative. P2 follows at nine weeks, and P3 at twelve weeks. P4, the last visit in the series, comes at sixteen weeks and is when rabies is added.

Spreading the series across four visits rather than doing it in one appointment is standard practice in veterinary medicine, and it is exactly what Rose-Rich follows here. If your puppy's timing slips a week or two around a holiday or a schedule conflict, that is a question for the vet at the next visit rather than something to guess at on your own.

Kittens: eight weeks to sixteen weeks

The kitten series is shorter and starts later. K1 is at eight weeks, K2 at twelve weeks, and K3 at sixteen weeks. For kittens that will spend time outdoors, K3 is also when rabies gets added. Whether an indoor only kitten needs that same addition is a conversation to have with the vet at the visit, based on how your household and neighborhood actually work.

Getting them comfortable with the visits themselves

Four or five visits in the first few months is also a chance to get a puppy or kitten used to the whole experience of going to the vet, not just the vaccines. Short car rides that do not always end at the clinic, calm handling of paws and ears at home, and a few minutes in the waiting area without an appointment can all make later visits easier. Rose-Rich's lobby, with its courtyard fountain and Talavera tile, tends to give even a nervous new puppy a minute to settle before heading back to an exam room, which helps more than people expect.

It also helps to keep a simple written or phone record of which visit your pet is on, especially if more than one person in the household handles scheduling, or if you have more than one young pet on different calendars at the same time. The front desk keeps the official record either way, but knowing where things stand yourself makes it easier to ask the right question at the next visit.

The rabies rule is different depending on where you live

Once a puppy or kitten is past the initial series, rabies boosters follow a local rule rather than a single statewide one. In Rosenberg and Needville, rabies vaccination is required every year. In the surrounding parts of Fort Bend County, it is required every three years. Rose-Rich keeps this straight for every patient on file, but it is worth knowing which rule applies to your address, especially if you move within the area.

After the last shot: spay or neuter timing

Rose-Rich recommends spay or neuter surgery after the last visit in each series, meaning after P4 for puppies and after K3 for kittens. The clinic's surgical suite handles this alongside its other soft tissue procedures, with pre-anesthetic blood work and monitoring built into the process. Your vet will talk through the timing at the P4 or K3 visit itself, once they have seen how your particular puppy or kitten is growing.

Once your puppy or kitten finishes its last visit in the series, whether that is P4 or K3, they move onto Rose-Rich's Healthy Pet Wellness Program, which covers a yearly physical exam, annual vaccinations, a fecal test, and a heartworm test from that point forward. The first year is the busy stretch. After it, the calendar settles into a single visit a year unless something else comes up in between.

Setting the calendar

The easiest way to stay on schedule is to book the next visit before you leave the current one, which is how most Rose-Rich clients end up handling it. Call (281) 342-3727 to get a new puppy or kitten started, or to check where yours currently sits in the series. The clinic has been raising the area's puppies and kittens through this exact calendar since 1964, so the front desk can usually tell at a glance what visit comes next, and appointments run Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm, with walk in hours Saturday mornings until noon.

• Puppies: P1 at six weeks, P2 at nine weeks, P3 at twelve weeks, P4 at sixteen weeks with rabies
• Kittens: K1 at eight weeks, K2 at twelve weeks, K3 at sixteen weeks, rabies added for outdoor cats
• Spay or neuter recommended after the last visit in either series