Vet Visits, Vaccinations, and Milestones to Track in the First Year
A new puppy generates a surprising amount of information fast: vaccine dates, weight numbers, a weird thing they did on a Tuesday that you meant to mention at the next visit and then forgot by Friday. None of it is hard to track. It's just easy to lose if you don't have a system for it from day one.
The New Puppy Planner is the paperwork-and-tracking companion for your puppy's first year, not a training guide or a puppy-proofing checklist. It gives you a general vet visit timeline, a vaccination and preventative tracker, a growth log, a symptom log, and a what-to-bring checklist, so every appointment starts with real records instead of a guess.
Sets expectations up front: this is an organizational framework for records and questions, not medical guidance, and it's meant to work alongside your own vet's specific recommendations, not replace them.
A general planning scaffold showing the typical rhythm of puppy vet visits across the first year, from the 6-8 week wellness exam through the 12-month annual checkup, with a list of what to confirm with your vet at each stage.
A structured log for recording what was given, lot numbers, next due dates, and any reaction noted afterward, plus a breakdown of the categories most tracking sheets cover, from core vaccines to flea/tick prevention and microchip status.
An eight-entry weight and notes table built around the idea that a single weigh-in means little on its own; logging weight, age, and notes on appetite, energy, and stool over time is what reveals a trend worth mentioning.
A simple format for capturing the odd thing your puppy did in the moment, not two weeks later from memory, so your vet gets specific details on timing, duration, and context instead of a vague recollection.
A list of questions to bring to that conversation with your vet, covering timing, breed- and size-specific factors, recovery, and cost, without this guide making a recommendation on when to schedule it.
Practical, logistics-focused questions to ask when calling clinics, such as new-patient availability, after-hours coverage, wellness package options, and record-sharing policy, for owners who brought a puppy home before lining up a vet.
A nine-item checklist to run through before any appointment, covering your trackers and logs, prior paperwork, your top questions in priority order, current medications, and anything that's changed since the last visit.
A clear closing disclaimer: Nudge Guides is not a veterinary practice, nothing here is medical advice, and anything that feels urgent should go to your vet or an emergency line right away rather than waiting on a log entry.
Most puppy content online is either training advice or a hazard checklist. This guide covers neither. It's built specifically around the administrative side of puppy ownership: the vet visit timeline, the vaccination tracker, the growth log, and the symptom log that keep a first year full of appointments and easy-to-forget details from turning into a blur. If what you need is a system for records and questions, not another list of training tips, this is the piece that's missing.
It's also upfront about its own limits. Every timeline, interval, and category in this guide is general by design and explicitly framed as a conversation starter with your vet, not a substitute for their guidance. The spay/neuter section asks questions instead of recommending an age. The vaccination tracker is meant to be filled in by your vet's actual recommendations, not pre-populated from the internet.
No. This is an organizational and planning tool, not medical guidance. Every timeline and category in the guide is general, and the guide repeatedly tells you to follow your own vet's specific recommendations for your individual puppy over anything printed here.
It gives you a general first-year visit timeline (roughly 6-8 weeks, 10-12 weeks, 14-16 weeks, and so on) to help you plan ahead, plus a tracker structure to log what your vet actually gives and when. The exact vaccines, products, and timing are confirmed by your vet, not by this guide.
No. The spay/neuter section is a list of questions to bring to that conversation with your vet, covering timing, breed and size factors, and recovery. The guide is explicit that there's no single universally correct age and that this decision belongs to you and your vet.
It's a printable PDF organized into sections you can work through once (choosing a vet, understanding the first-year timeline) and logs you'll use repeatedly (the vaccination tracker, growth log, and symptom log), plus a checklist to run through before each visit.
Yes. The vet visit timeline and tracker structures work alongside an existing vet relationship; most of the guide's value is in the growth log, symptom log, and pre-visit checklist, which help you walk into appointments you've already scheduled more prepared.
The whole first year. The vet visit timeline runs through the 12-month annual exam, and the growth log, symptom log, and visit checklist are designed to be used repeatedly across every appointment during that period, not just the first one.