How do I prove my dog has been vaccinated?

With the certificate your veterinarian signed, not with the tag on the collar and not with a sheet you filled in yourself. The certificate names the product and manufacturer, the serial or lot number, the date given and the date due, and carries the veterinarian's signature and license number. Ask your clinic for a copy, or download it from the clinic portal, and keep a photo of it on your phone.

How do I get my dog's vaccination records online?

Start with your clinic's own portal, since that is where the record was created. If your clinic does not run one, email or call and ask for a copy of the patient records: veterinarians are obligated to provide copies or summaries on client request, and several states put a deadline on it. California gives five days under Business and Professions Code section 4855, and Texas gives 15 business days under 22 TAC 573.54.

Is there an app that can track my pet's vaccines?

Several exist. In our reading of the market, most of them are built by clinic software vendors, which means they work well only if your own clinic adopted that platform. If you have changed clinics or used an emergency hospital, no single app holds the whole history. A general document vault plus a one-page summary sheet is more durable, because it does not depend on which software your veterinarian bought.

Do vets keep vaccination records?

Yes. Under the AVMA's Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics, medical records are the property of the practice and the practice owner, and the original records must be retained by the practice for the period required by law. That period is set state by state. The practice keeps the original; you are entitled to a copy.

What should a cat vaccination record show?

The same fields as a dog's, with a different vaccine list. Expect FVRCP, the feline distemper combination covering rhinotracheitis, calicivirus and panleukopenia, plus rabies as the core pair, and FeLV, feline leukemia, which is core for kittens and lifestyle after the first year. The AAHA and AAFP feline guidelines put FVRCP at every year for the intranasal product and every three years for the injected one, and set no rabies interval of their own, deferring to state law.

How long do vets keep vaccination records?

State veterinary boards set a minimum retention period, and it differs by state, so ask your clinic what theirs is. The practice keeps the original record either way; you are entitled to a copy of it, and requesting a copy is the safe move rather than assuming the file will still be there years from now.

Is a printable record I filled in myself valid proof?

No. A sheet you completed is a personal tracker. It is useful for remembering what is due and for answering questions quickly, and it is not proof, because nothing on it was signed by the veterinarian who gave the dose. Use it to point at the certificate, never in place of it.

What is the difference between a rabies certificate and a shot record?

A shot record is a list of everything your animal has had. A rabies certificate is a specific signed document for one dose of rabies vaccine, and it is the instrument local law is written around. The NASPHV Compendium recommends its Form 51 for this and says the form must be completed in full and signed by the administering or supervising veterinarian.

Can I get my records if I owe the clinic money?

In every state where we could find a rule on it, yes. Texas is explicit that records may not be withheld based on a past due account for care previously rendered, and Pennsylvania, Ohio and Massachusetts carry the same bar in their own practice rules. The unpaid bill is a separate matter from the record. Ask in writing and cite the rule if you have to.

What do I do if my vet's clinic closed?

Ask where the records went first, since a closing practice usually transfers them to another clinic or a custodian. For rabies there is sometimes a second copy: in some jurisdictions clinics file certificates with a local rabies registry, Cook County, Illinois being one, so the county or state health department may be able to produce one. If neither works, your animal is treated as unvaccinated and gets revaccinated.

Pet Vaccination Record: What It Shows + Free Printable

What a pet vaccination record is

A pet vaccination record lists every vaccine your animal has had, the date each was given, and when the next one is due. The rabies certificate is a separate signed document, and it is the one anyone official accepts. That confusion is what gets people turned away at a boarding desk with a folder in their hand.

Get the printable

The free sheet on this page is an owner’s summary you fill in yourself, not a certificate. Nobody signs it and it proves nothing on its own. It exists so the answer to “when is the rabies due” lives on one page.

Download the PDF Print it instead

Free, no email, no account.

This page has three parts. First, the free printable below: an owner’s summary sheet you fill in yourself, so the answer to “when is the rabies due” lives on one page instead of in four portals. Second, what a real vet-issued record has to show, drawn out field by field. Third, who asks for it and what each of them will actually take. Dogs live in 42.6% of US households and cats in 32.6%, per the AVMA’s 2025 Pet Ownership and Demographic Sourcebook, so this is paperwork most households carry and almost nobody files.

This is general information about documents, not veterinary or legal advice. Your state, your city and your kennel all get a say, and they do not always agree.

Two documents, not one

The tracker you keep is not the certificate your vet issues. They look similar. They do completely different jobs.

The tracker. A sheet, a note, or a spreadsheet listing what your animal has had and what is due. You maintain it. Nobody signs it. It is for you.
The certificate. A one-page document issued by the clinic for a specific dose. The NASPHV Compendium of Animal Rabies Prevention and Control recommends its Form 51 for this, accepts equivalent and computer-generated forms, and says the form must be completed in full and signed by the administering or supervising veterinarian. The 2016 edition is still the current one, with a revision noted as in progress.

Ohio puts the consequence plainly. Under Ohio Administrative Code 3701-3-29, an animal is not treated as currently vaccinated “unless and until it has a current rabies vaccination status as demonstrated by a rabies vaccination certificate signed by a licensed doctor of veterinary medicine.” No signature, no certificate. Ohio’s health department adds the other half of the arithmetic: an animal counts as overdue one day past the labeled duration of its last dose.

The free printable pet vaccination record

One sheet per pet, with species checkboxes so a household with a dog and a cat prints the same page twice. Fill it in from your certificate or your clinic printout, keep it wherever your household paperwork lives, and copy the next-due dates into whatever reminds you of things.

It is deliberately not a certificate. There is no veterinarian signature line and no license-number blank on it, and the footer on the printed sheet says so: Owner’s summary. Not a vaccination certificate. Ask your veterinarian for the signed certificate.

Download as PDF

Free, no email, no account. The print button and the PDF produce the same sheet.

1. Pet identity

The license tag and the rabies tag are two different tags from two different issuers. Both lines are on the sheet, and they take different numbers.

Pet name
Species (check one): Dog / Cat / Other: ____________
Breed
Date of birth or estimated age
Sex (check one): Male / Female / Neutered or spayed
Color and markings
Microchip number
Microchip registry and account
License tag number
Issuing city or county
Rabies tag number

2. Veterinary contact

Clinic name
Phone
Address
Online portal address
Records request email

3. Vaccinations

Vaccine rows grouped by species, with three blank rows at the end. The columns are date given, product + manufacturer, lot or serial number, next due, given by (clinic), certificate on file?.

Dogs

Rabies
DHPP / DA2PP
Leptospirosis
Bordetella
Canine influenza
Lyme

Cats

Rabies
FVRCP
FeLV

Then three blank rows for anything else.

4. Where the official certificate is

Two free-text lines: drawer, clinic portal, county registry, Granite. Whichever is true.

Printed on the sheet itself

Owner's summary. Not a vaccination certificate. Ask your veterinarian for the signed certificate.

There is no signature line and no license-number blank on this sheet, on purpose. A blank that looks issuable is the wrong thing to hand anyone.

What a vet-issued vaccination record has to show

A record is acceptable, rather than merely filled in, when a stranger can read it and answer three questions: which animal, which product, and is it still current. Form 51’s field list is the checklist for that. Here it is drawn out, watermarked so nobody mistakes it for the real thing.

An illustrative certificate, not a real one. The clinic, the owner, the animal, the license number VET-000000 and the lot number SAMPLE-LOT are all invented, and no signature is reproduced. Your clinic’s certificate will look different; what matters is that the same eight things are on it.

1Owner name and address. Who the animal belongs to, as the clinic has it on file. If you moved and never told the clinic, this is the line that makes a landlord or a licensing clerk send you back.
2Animal description. Species, breed, sex, age or date of birth, and colors and markings. Enough to tie the certificate to the animal standing in front of someone.
3Rabies tag number. The number stamped on the metal tag issued with the dose. It belongs on the certificate. On its own, hanging from a collar, it is not proof of anything.
4Microchip number. Identity, not proof of vaccination. For a dog entering or returning to the United States, CDC requires the chip to be implanted before the rabies dose, or the vaccination does not count.
5Vaccine product and manufacturer. The trade name and the company that made it. This is what tells a reader whether the dose was a one-year or a three-year product.
6Serial or lot number. The manufacturing lot of the vial. A clinic summary printout may leave this out; the certificate never does. Texas rule 22 TAC 573.51 names it as a required field.
7Date vaccinated and date due. Both, not one. The due date is the line a kennel or a licensing office actually reads. CDC also wants the product's expiration date, and will reject a record where it is unknown.
8Veterinarian signature and license number. The signature of the veterinarian who gave the dose or supervised it, over a license number. Without this the sheet is a list, not a certificate.

The eight fields are the owner’s name and address; the animal description, meaning species, breed, sex, age and color; the rabies tag number; the microchip number; the vaccine product and manufacturer; the serial or lot number; the date vaccinated together with the date due; and the veterinarian’s signature over a license number. A clinic summary printout may leave the lot number and the manufacturer out; the certificate never does. The printout was designed to remind you of dates, not to satisfy an inspector. If you are travelling or licensing, ask for the certificate itself.

Texas writes the same idea into rule. 22 TAC 573.51names the rabies tag number, the vaccine type and route, the vaccine expiration date and the lot number as things that have to be on the certificate. CDC goes one step further for dogs coming into the United States: if the most recent vaccination’s product expiration date is unknown, the record will not be accepted and the dog gets revaccinated. Miss a date and the record fails, whatever else is on it.

Owner-administered shots do not count

A dose given at home produces no certificate, and the certificate is the proof. Only the veterinarian who gave the dose or supervised it can sign one, which is exactly what the Ohio rule quoted above turns on: an animal is not currently vaccinated until a licensed veterinarian has signed for it. So a shot you administered yourself leaves your animal unvaccinated on paper. Everything downstream, the license, the kennel, the bite investigation, follows the paper.

Why we are not giving you a certificate template

One phrase people search in this corner of the internet is “completed dog vaccination record.” We cannot know the intent behind any one search. We do know that forged veterinary certificates get prosecuted. KTVZ, carrying CNN Newsource, reported on April 22, 2025 that a Florida woman was convicted of falsifying rabies vaccine records. WGME reported a Maine state warning to pet owners about fake rabies certificates, and KERO Turn to 23 reported that Taft Veterinary Hospital in California warned about forged vaccination records circulating under its name. A blank form with a signature line and a license-number field is the wrong thing to hand anyone, so ours has neither.

Who will ask for a pet vaccination record, and what they will accept

Seven different desks ask for this document and they want it in different forms. Read across the row for whichever one is in front of you.

Seven requesters who ask for a pet vaccination record, with the vaccines each usually asks for, the document form each accepts, and the typical extras.
Who is asking	Vaccines usually asked for	What they accept as the document	Typical extras
Boarding and daycare	Rabies, DHPP or DA2PP, Bordetella (kennel cough); FVRCP for cats	Written proof from the clinic. Some facilities also take the vet invoice showing the date administered. Policies vary by facility, so ask before you book.	PetSmart's PetsHotel requirements page (seen September 2026) asks for Bordetella every 12 months and for doses given at least 24 hours before arrival. Canine influenza is listed as recommended, not required.
Groomer	Rabies, sometimes Bordetella	A copy of the certificate or a clinic record. Shop policy, not law.	Groomers commonly ask for current rabies proof; some also ask for Bordetella. Ask before you book. The tag on the collar is not the document, so bring paper or a photo of it.
Apartment or HOA	Whatever the lease or the pet addendum names, usually rabies	A copy of the rabies certificate, filed with the pet addendum.	Landlords and HOAs can and commonly do ask, and there is no federal rule either way. Read the addendum and ask what form they want it in.
City or county license	Rabies	The signed certificate. Proof of current vaccination is the prerequisite for the license.	In California the license period cannot extend past the date the vaccination stops being valid, so a one-year dose buys a shorter license.
Dog park permit	Rabies, plus whatever the local rule adds	Many municipal dog parks require a current license, which itself requires a rabies certificate. Some ask to see the certificate at registration, then the license tag on the collar day to day.	Set by the parks department, so it varies street to street. In California the license itself cannot be issued without current rabies vaccination, under Health and Safety Code 121690.
Domestic airline	Rabies, and the carrier's own list	Carrier policy, which is not federal law. Some ask for a health certificate dated within a set window.	Check the airline before you book, not the week of the flight.
Entering or returning to the US	Rabies, documented CDC's way	A CDC Dog Import Form receipt for every dog, plus a Certification of U.S.-issued Rabies Vaccination when the dog has been in a high-risk country.	Dogs must be at least six months old, and the microchip must be implanted before the rabies dose or the vaccination is invalid. USDA-endorsed export health certificates issued after July 31, 2025 are no longer accepted for re-entry.

The boarding row is the one with a clock on it. A dose given the morning of drop-off may not count: PetSmart’s published PetsHotel requirements ask for at least 24 hours, and Dogtopia publishes its own pre-arrival window. Policies vary by facility, so read the one in front of you. The international row is the one with the most ways to go wrong, because the microchip has to come first. CDC is explicit that a chip implanted after the rabies dose invalidates the vaccination. Leaving the country is a separate stack again: USDA APHIS says that when a country-specific health certificate exists on its pet travel pages, that is the only certificate the pet needs and the only one APHIS can endorse. Form 7001 is the fallback for airline paperwork, not the international document people assume it is.

If your household evacuates for a fire or a storm, boarding is often the first thing you need and the certificate is the thing you did not pack. That is a good argument for keeping a copy in your family emergency binder, and a better one for keeping a copy somewhere that is not in the house.

How to get a copy of your pet’s records

The normal route is short: ask the clinic, or download it from the clinic’s portal. The AVMA’s Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics set the ground rules, and they are worth knowing before you call. Medical records are the property of the practice and the practice owner, the originals stay with the practice for as long as law requires, and a veterinarian is obligated to provide copies or summaries when the client asks. You get a copy, not the file.

Three hard cases come up over and over.

The clinic closed. Ask where the records went, since a closing practice normally transfers them. For rabies there is sometimes a second copy: in some jurisdictions clinics file certificates with a local rabies registry. Cook County, Illinois runs one, so the county or state health department is worth a call before you give up.
You owe a balance. In every state where we could find a rule on it, the bill and the record are separate matters. Texas 22 TAC 573.54(d) is headed “Improper withholding for past due accounts” and says records may not be withheld based on a past due account for care previously rendered. Pennsylvania, Ohio and Massachusetts carry the same bar in their practice rules. We did not find a state that affirmatively allows withholding.
The history is split. A move, an emergency hospital visit, a low-cost clinic and a vaccination event can leave four partial records in four systems. Nobody merges them for you. This is the same shape as the human problem in organizing medical records at home, and the same fix applies: one page that lists what exists and where.

If your pet was adopted, rescued or bought.Shelters and rescues hand over the intake vaccination history at adoption, and it is usually the only record of the doses given before you met the animal. A breeder should give you the puppy’s or kitten’s first-round record the same way. Keep whichever you were given as the starting page of the history, then add your own clinic’s certificates behind it. If you were handed nothing, ask the organization: they keep intake records and can usually reissue a copy.

How long do vets keep records? State veterinary boards set a minimum retention period, and it differs by state. Ask your clinic what theirs is rather than assuming the file will still be there in a decade, and request a copy while the answer is still yes.

Deadlines exist in some states and they are useful to quote. California’s Business and Professions Code section 4855 requires a copy within five days of a verbal or written request, as amended by AB 1502 effective January 1, 2026. Texas gives 15 business days under 22 TAC 573.54(a). In our reading of the market, clinic-side apps are a partial answer at best: most of them are built by practice software vendors, so they hold your history only if your own clinic bought that platform.

One-year vs three-year rabies, and what the paper says

VCA’s page on the one-year and three-year rabies vaccine says the two products commonly differ only in what the manufacturer licensed. What changes is the number printed on your certificate, and that number is what a facility reads.

The NASPHV rule is simple and worth memorizing: a booster is due one year after the first dose regardless of the product or the animal’s age, and after that the vaccine’s own label sets the interval. The compendium also says that no data support giving three-year vaccines annually after the initial series. AAHA and AAFP decline to set a rabies interval at all, listing it as “as required by law.” Your state or city can require a shorter interval than the label. Check your local rule rather than assuming.

Here is where the paperwork bites. County clinics often offer both products, and the three-year one comes with a condition. Loudoun County, Virginia’s clinic pageputs it in one line: “To receive the three-year vaccine, you must bring proof of prior vaccination.” Show up without the previous certificate and you get the one-year dose, and you are back in the same queue next summer. The certificate is also the input to the next dose, which makes it one of those documents that quietly expire.

Titers, exemptions, and where they actually help

A titer measures antibodies in blood. It is not a substitute for a rabies vaccination in the United States, and NASPHV says so directly in its serologic monitoring guidance. AAHA takes a similar line on the rest of the core vaccines: routine titer testing is not usually advised as a substitute for the recommended intervals, and for rabies there is no titer correlate of protection at all.

Facility policy is where it gets messy, and it cuts both ways. Some boarding businesses accept distemper and parvovirus titers in place of a booster, as their own policy rather than as a rule anyone wrote. Others cannot. Iowa’s kennel rule, at Iowa Administrative Code r. 21-67.7(162), subrule 67.7(1)“c”, tells licensed boarding kennels that “vaccine titers shall not be accepted as a form of vaccine verification.” That binds the kennel, not you, but the effect on your booking is the same. Ask before you assume.

Where a titer genuinely is the point is international travel. For a dog arriving from a high-risk rabies country on a foreign vaccine, CDC requires a titer of at least 0.5 IU/mL from a CDC-approved laboratory alongside the Certification of Foreign Rabies Vaccination and Microchip, and entry only at a port with a CDC-registered animal care facility. Destination countries have their own thresholds. USDA guidance for Turkey, for instance, requires a valid titer or a 21-day quarantine.

Medical exemptions exist and they are narrower than people hope. California’s process, under Health and Safety Code 121690, needs a veterinarian’s documentation, is granted at the local health officer’s discretion, lasts one year, and has to be requested again. An exempt dog can also be required to be confined or kept on a six-foot lead. And an exemption granted by a public health officer does not bind a private kennel, which is free to say no anyway.

The vaccine schedule at a glance

Core vaccines are the ones recommended for every animal. Lifestyle vaccines depend on where you live and what your animal does. These tables follow the AAHA canine vaccination guidelines (2022, updated 2024) and the AAHA and AAFP feline vaccination guidelines (2020). Your veterinarian’s plan for your animal beats any table, including this one.

Bordetella: Kennel cough. The vaccine boarding and daycare facilities ask about most.
DHPP / DA2PP: The combined shot for distemper, adenovirus (hepatitis), parainfluenza and parvovirus.
Leptospirosis: A bacterial infection spread through the urine of wildlife and standing water. Core for dogs since AAHA's 2024 update.
FVRCP: The feline distemper combination: rhinotracheitis, calicivirus and panleukopenia.
FeLV: Feline leukemia virus.
Titer: A blood test measuring antibody level. It is not a substitute for rabies vaccination in the United States.

Dogs
Vaccine	Core or lifestyle	First series	After that
Rabies	Core, and set by law	First dose at the age your state names	“As required by law” in the AAHA table. A booster one year after the first dose, then whatever the product's label allows.
DAP / DHPP / DA2PP	Core	At least three doses between 6 and 16 weeks of age, two to four weeks apart	One year after the series, then every three years
Leptospirosis	Core in AAHA's 2024 update	Two doses, two to four weeks apart	Every year
Bordetella	Lifestyle, and the boarding gatekeeper	Per product	Usually every 12 months, and facilities set their own window
Canine influenza (H3N2, H3N8)	Lifestyle	Two doses	Per product and per facility policy
Lyme	Lifestyle, by region	Two doses	Per product

One naming note that trips people up: your record may say DAP, DHPP, DA2PP, DAPP or DHLPP for what is broadly the same combination shot, with letters added or dropped for parainfluenza and leptospirosis. They are not typos. The puppy series repeats because maternal antibodies from the mother can block an early dose, and nobody knows exactly when they fade in an individual puppy, so the series covers the window rather than guessing at it.

Cats
Vaccine	Core or lifestyle	First series	After that
Rabies	Core, and set by law	First dose at the age your state names	“As required by law” in the AAHA and AAFP table
FVRCP	Core	Kitten series, with an extra dose at six months worth considering	Every year for the intranasal product, every three years for the injected one
FeLV	Core for kittens, then lifestyle	Two doses	After the first year it depends on whether the cat goes outside

The cat version: FVRCP, FeLV, rabies

A cat vaccination record carries the same fields as a dog’s and a different list of vaccines. The core set is FVRCP, the feline distemper combination covering rhinotracheitis, calicivirus and panleukopenia, plus rabies. FeLV, feline leukemia, is core for kittens and a lifestyle vaccine after the first year, decided by whether the cat goes outside. FVRCP runs every year for the intranasal product and every three years for the injected one, per the AAHA and AAFP feline guidelines, which set no rabies interval and defer to law.

Cat owners often assume rabies is a dog rule. It is not. 32 US states mandate rabies vaccination for cats, and a 2024 review in Viruses counted 6,024 rabid cats against 1,697 rabid dogs in the United States between 2000 and 2021. A boarding facility asks cat owners for the same paperwork it asks dog owners for: the signed rabies certificate, not the tag.

How Granite handles a pet vaccination record

Of the 110 public document types Granite is built to read (as of September 1, 2026), exactly one has a non-human patient: the veterinary record. It is the only schema in the library that extracts species and breed. Drop a certificate in and Granite reads the patient name, species, breed, owner, clinic and date, files it under the pet it concerns, and hands it back when you search for it in plain English.

How we counted: every schema definition file in the Granite repository, excluding the library index and the four internal parent schemas that no document is ever classified as. Counted twice with two different commands on September 1, 2026.

Where our own coverage stops. Our human immunization schema captures the vaccine name, the lot number and the next due date. Our veterinary schema captures none of those three, and the word rabies appears in no schema in the library. So Granite will file and find your pet’s certificate today, and it will not fire a booster reminder off it the way it does for the human immunization record. That gap is exactly why the printable above has a next-due column.

What Granite cannot do: it cannot issue a certificate, replace a lost one, or give veterinary advice. Only your clinic can do the first two. For where the paper copy belongs in the meantime, we wrote up a home filing system, and the same idea for medications if you keep one of those for an animal on long-term treatment.

Pet vaccination record: what is on it, who asks for it, and a free printable