Toy Poodle Puppy Vaccines and First Vet Visit in Spain

A Toy Poodle puppy arrives in a Spanish home with two kinds of paperwork attached: the medical kind, which you plan with your vet, and the legal kind, which the Valencian rules set for every dog. This guide covers both for the first months. It explains how the puppy vaccine series works under international veterinary guidance, which vaccination is compulsory in the Valencian Community, what happens at the first vet visit and which documents to bring. It is general information, not a vaccination plan: your vet examines the puppy, chooses the vaccines and sets every date. For the first weeks at home more broadly, see our Toy Poodle puppy guide.

Core and Non-Core Vaccines

Vets sort dog vaccines into two groups. Core vaccines are the ones WSAVA recommends for every dog in the world: they protect against canine distemper, canine adenovirus and canine parvovirus. Non-core vaccines depend on where the dog lives and how it lives, and you decide on them together with your vet. Leptospirosis is the example most owners meet: WSAVA highly recommends vaccinating all dogs against it in regions where it is endemic and suitable vaccines exist. Whether that applies to your dog in Spain, and which other vaccines make sense, is a question for your vet.

Rabies sits in a category of its own. WSAVA treats it as core wherever the disease is endemic, and in the Valencian Community it is also a legal duty, which the section below explains.

How the Puppy Series Works

A puppy is born with antibodies from its mother, and WSAVA notes that they interfere with most core vaccines given early in life, at levels that vary within and between litters. That is why one injection is not enough. WSAVA recommends several doses of the core vaccines every two to four weeks, with the final dose at 16 weeks of age or older, and a further dose at or after 26 weeks. The guidance does not fix a single start week that suits every puppy, so the dates depend on the puppy's records and on your vet's judgement.

Stage	What the guidance says	Who decides
First weeks of life	Several core doses, two to four weeks apart; the series may have started before the puppy came home	Your vet, using the earlier records
16 weeks or older	Final dose of the puppy core series (WSAVA)	Your vet
Before four months	Rabies vaccination, compulsory in the Valencian Community	The regional order; your vet gives it
26 weeks or older	Core revaccination (WSAVA)	Your vet
A year after the first rabies dose	Rabies booster, compulsory	The regional order; your vet books it
Adult years	Core vaccines no more often than necessary; a health check, usually yearly	Your vet

After that, WSAVA says adult dogs should not receive core vaccines more often than necessary, because modern core vaccines protect for many years, while most non-core vaccines last about a year. What stays is the regular health check, usually yearly. Your vet may also suggest a blood test for antibodies, which WSAVA supports from 20 weeks of age onwards.

Rabies: the Legal Part in the Valencian Community

In the Valencian Community, Order 3/2016 regulates the compulsory health treatments of companion animals. The Generalitat's own announcement of the order sums up the rule for owners of dogs, cats and ferrets: vaccinate against rabies before the fourth month of life, give a booster dose once a year has passed since the first vaccination, and after that follow the schedule in the technical specifications of the vaccine used. A Generalitat resolution published in October 2025 still lists the order among the rules that apply.

Valencian law requires vets to keep a clinical file on every compulsory vaccination they give, and you should ask the vet to record each vaccination in the health card or pet passport. If you live in another region of Spain, the rule can differ, so ask your vet or town hall what applies where you live.

Microchip First, Then the Vaccinations

Valencian Law 2/2023 (article 13) says a dog must be identified before any transfer to a new owner and before its compulsory vaccinations. Identification means a microchip implanted by a registered vet and an entry in the regional identification register, known as RIVIA in València city council's own wording. In practice, a puppy that changes hands in the region should arrive already chipped, with the chip number in its health card or passport. If it does not, ask the previous owner before anything else and tell your vet at the first visit. The registration side, including the change of owner and the municipal census, is explained in our guide to registering your dog in Valencia.

The First Vet Visit

Before you go

Book an appointment in the first days after the puppy arrives, even if it seems perfectly well: an early check gives the vet a baseline. Bring the health card or EU pet passport, every record of vaccines and deworming the previous owner gave you, the name of the food the puppy has been eating and a note of anything you have noticed, such as appetite, stools, coughing or scratching. Ask the clinic about its waiting-room rules, and keep the puppy in a closed carrier on your lap until the vet says otherwise.

What the vet checks

Expect a full examination and a weigh-in. Ask the vet to scan the microchip to check that the number matches the documents, review what the puppy has already received and plan the next doses. A Toy Poodle puppy is very small, so leave the dose of any medicine or parasite treatment entirely to the vet.

After the visit

Ask your vet what is normal after a vaccination and when to call the clinic. Ask also when it will be safe to walk on the street and meet other dogs, because the answer depends on the vaccines given and on where you live. Until then, socialise the puppy at home and in your arms: new sounds, people and surfaces still count.

Parasites Your Vet Will Mention in Spain

Vaccines are only half of the preventive plan. In the Valencian Community, the compulsory health programme for companion animals also includes deworming against echinococcosis, according to a 2025 Generalitat protocol that names it next to rabies vaccination. Ask your vet how this applies to your puppy and how often to repeat it.

The other subject is leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease spread by sandflies. The Generalitat's public health surveillance protocol names Spain as an endemic country and the dog as the best-known reservoir of the parasite here. Ask your vet what prevention suits a small puppy and when to start. Ask about fleas, ticks and intestinal worms too, and let the vet choose the product and the dose for your puppy's weight.

Travelling Abroad Later: the EU Pet Passport

If you plan to take the dog to another EU country, the EU rules add their own conditions. The microchip must be in place before the rabies vaccination, the puppy must be at least 12 weeks old for its first rabies vaccination, and you must wait at least 21 days after that first vaccination before travelling. An EU pet passport is mandatory for travel between EU countries, and any authorised vet can issue one to an owner resident in the EU. Travel outside the EU follows separate rules, so check them well before you book.

Questions to Ask Your Vet

1. Which vaccines does my puppy still need, and on which dates? Ask for the full plan in writing.
2. Do you recommend leptospirosis or any other non-core vaccine here? The answer depends on where and how the dog lives.
3. When is the rabies vaccination due, and when is the booster?
4. When can the puppy walk outside and meet other dogs?
5. What do you suggest against leishmaniasis, fleas, ticks and worms, and from what age?
6. Is the microchip registered correctly in my name?

The first year continues with the neutering question, which our neutering guide covers, and the long-term picture is in the Toy Poodle health guide.