Puppy Vaccination Schedule: Which Shots at Which Week, and Which Ones Are Optional

The core puppy series is at least three doses of the combination vaccine between 6 and 16 weeks of age, 2 to 4 weeks apart, with the last dose after 16 weeks and rabies added at whatever age your state allows — the interval matters more than the count, because a dose given too early can be neutralised before it works.

The core puppy schedule, visit by visit

This is the schedule in the 2022 AAHA canine vaccination guidelines: at least three doses of the core combination vaccine between 6 and 16 weeks of age, given 2 to 4 weeks apart, plus rabies. Your veterinarian may adjust it for a shelter puppy, a high-parvovirus area or a breed with a known reaction history.

6 to 8 weeks: the first core dose

AAHA puts the minimum age to begin the primary protocol at 6 to 8 weeks. This dose is usually given by the breeder or shelter before the puppy comes home, so what you inherit is a date on a card rather than a memory.

10 to 12 weeks: the second core dose

Two to four weeks after the first. This is the appointment owners most often let slide when the puppy looks healthy, and it is the one that keeps the interval intact.

14 to 16 weeks: the third core dose, plus rabies

The dose the schedule exists to deliver, given after maternal antibody has usually waned. Rabies is normally given at this visit, subject to the minimum age your state sets and the three-month floor on every licensed US product label.

18 to 20 weeks: a fourth dose where parvovirus risk is high

AAHA prefers finishing at 18 to 20 weeks in high-risk areas rather than at 16. This is an extra dose, not an upsell, and it is the cheapest insurance on this page.

One year: the booster that closes the series

A single dose of the core combination is due within one year of the last puppy dose. After that AAHA recommends boosters every three years and states that annual boosters are not necessary.

Why the last dose is the one that matters

A puppy is born with antibodies from its mother, and while those antibodies are still circulating they can neutralise a modified-live vaccine before it does anything.

AAHA is specific about the timing: maternally derived antibodies against parvovirus decline exponentially but may persist for 13 to 15 weeks or possibly longer, which is why revaccination every 2 to 4 weeks until the puppy is older than 16 weeks is recommended.

Nobody can tell from the outside which week that happened in for an individual puppy, and there is no visible sign that a dose failed to take.

AAHA also names the consequence directly. Failure to complete primary vaccine schedules, or vaccine storage and administration errors, may account for many or most so-called vaccine failures — and parvovirus diagnoses in dogs under a year old continue because of it.

Rabies is a legal date before it is a clinical one

Every other vaccine on this page is a professional recommendation. Rabies is a statute, and the age, the interval, who may administer it and what certificate must exist are set where you live.

South Carolina's health department publishes its own requirement rather than pointing at a national schedule, and other states differ. All licensed US products are labelled for puppies three months of age and older, so 12 weeks is the earliest the label allows even where a state is silent.

One rule is national and worth planning around: the 2016 rabies compendium requires a booster one year after the first dose regardless of the formulation used or the age at first vaccination. A three-year vaccine bought for a puppy buys one year of cover — the detail is in how long a dog rabies shot lasts.

The doses that are added by lifestyle, not by the calendar

Three common additions are noncore, meaning AAHA recommends them by exposure risk rather than for every puppy. Each one adds doses, not just a line on the invoice.

Leptospirosis needs two doses 2 to 4 weeks apart, starting at 12 weeks of age, then annual boosters for life. AAHA nonetheless says vaccination should be strongly considered for most dogs in North America, including small-breed urban dogs.

Bordetella needs one intranasal dose, one oral dose, or two injectable doses 2 to 4 weeks apart in a naive dog. Which route the clinic uses decides whether your puppy is covered before its first training class — see the Bordetella vaccine for dogs.

Canine influenza needs two doses 2 to 4 weeks apart, then annual boosters.

Ask which doses on the estimate are core and which are exposure-based. A puppy that will board, attend daycare or live in tick country is a different animal from one that will not.

Deworming runs alongside, on its own schedule

Parasite treatment is dosed by weight, which is why the puppy is weighed at every visit even though vaccines are not weight-based.

The Companion Animal Parasite Council recommends that puppies be given anthelmintics starting at 2 weeks of age and repeated every 2 weeks until regular broad-spectrum parasite control begins, rather than waiting for a faecal test to turn positive. Roundworms pass from the mother before birth, so treatment is assumed rather than diagnosed.

CAPC also asks for testing for intestinal parasites at least four times in the first year of life, and twice yearly in adults. That is a laboratory schedule sitting quietly beside the vaccine schedule, and no puppy package price includes all of it.

What a breeder or shelter record has to say

"Had its first shots" is not a record. What you need is the date of each dose, the product name, and who administered it.

The product name matters because acronyms do not distinguish vials: DHPP, DAPP and DA2PP are the same core combination, while DHLPP and 6-in-1 contain leptospirosis as well. Two records that look identical can describe different purchases.

Where the history is genuinely unknown, AAHA's guidance is short — when in doubt, vaccinate — and a dog older than 16 weeks with no history needs two core doses 2 to 4 weeks apart, not one.

When can my puppy meet other dogs?

Not on the day the last dose is given, and not before the series is finished either — this is the judgement call the schedule creates rather than solves.

The Merck Veterinary Manual explains why the risk is not only about other dogs: parvovirus is a nonenveloped virus that resists many common disinfectants, can persist indoors at room temperature for at least two months, and outdoors, protected from sunlight, for many months or possibly years. Quaternary ammonium disinfectants are not reliable against it; dilute bleach is.

Merck's advice for a household where a dog has recently had parvoviral enteritis is concrete: only fully vaccinated puppies or fully vaccinated adult dogs should be introduced.

The practical middle ground most veterinarians describe is controlled contact — known, vaccinated adult dogs on clean surfaces — rather than dog parks and pavements, until the series is finished. Discuss your own puppy's window with the veterinarian giving the doses, because it depends on local parvovirus pressure.

What the whole course costs at a county clinic, a retail chain and a private practice is on our puppy shots cost page, and the individual core dose is priced at DHPP vaccine cost.

What skipping this costs

This is not only a quality-of-life question. Where it ends in a veterinary bill, we publish the price of that bill from our own dataset rather than leaving the stakes abstract. These are the outcomes it leads to, and what they cost.

Stopping the series at 12 weeks because the puppy 'has had its shots'

A course that may have landed entirely inside the maternal-antibody window, and an emergency visit for a puppy the owner believed was covered. We price it at veterinary urgent care visit, $85 to $150 — $124 typical.

Letting the rabies dose slide past the age your state requires

A licensing violation, and a repeat vaccination plus confinement if the puppy is ever bitten or bites someone. We price it at dog rabies vaccination, $10 to $70 — $25 typical.

Related guides

• dhpp dog vaccine — DHPP, DAPP and DA2PP are the same core dog vaccine.
• rabies shot for dogs — What a rabies shot for dogs protects against, who may legally give it, when it is due, and what happens to an unvaccinated dog after a bite or exposure..
• bordetella vaccine dog — The bordetella vaccine comes in three routes and only one needs two doses.
• bernese mountain dog diet — There is no Bernese-specific nutrient requirement.

Every guide we have written is on the preventive care index.

Sources

1. 2022 AAHA Canine Vaccination Guidelines (JAAHA 2022;58:1-19) — American Animal Hospital Association, PDF hosted by Merck Animal Health, 2022.
2. Canine Parvovirus Infection (Parvoviral Enteritis in Dogs) — Merck Veterinary Manual, professional version, reviewed by Alex Gallagher DVM MS DACVIM-SAIM, 2025.
3. Compendium of Animal Rabies Prevention and Control, 2016 — National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians, JAVMA 248(5):505, 2016.
4. Ascarid (Roundworm) Guidelines — Companion Animal Parasite Council (CAPC), 2025.
5. Rabies Vaccination — South Carolina Department of Public Health, 2026.