The WSAVA Vaccination Guidelines Group (VGG) separates vaccines into core and non-core. It defines core vaccines as those which ALL dogs and cats, regardless of circumstances or geographical location, should receive because they protect against severe, globally distributed diseases. The VGG stresses the global scope: a core vaccine is one that all dogs throughout the world must receive at recommended intervals.
For dogs, core protection covers canine distemper virus (CDV), canine adenovirus (CAV), and canine parvovirus type 2 (CPV-2). For cats, core covers feline parvovirus (FPV), feline calicivirus (FCV), and feline herpesvirus-1 (FHV-1). Rabies should be considered core for both species wherever the disease is endemic, even without a legal mandate. By contrast, non-core vaccines as those that are required by only those animals whose geographical location, local environment or lifestyle places them at risk of specific infections.
On timing, Core vaccines should not be given any more frequently than every three years (after the initial booster), while non-core vaccines which should be administered annually reflect their shorter duration of immunity. An annual health check replaces the expectation of annual revaccination.
Note: a separate companion-practical topic already covers AAFP 2020 feline vaccination. This WSAVA topic is complementary GLOBAL guidance (the VGG explicitly sets worldwide core recommendations), not a duplicate of the North-America-centric AAFP document.
Pet-food relevance: limited directly, but vaccination sits alongside nutrition in the WSAVA preventive-care framework; sharing the same source family aids cross-linking. Written in paraphrase mode (WSAVA guidelines are copyrighted); abbreviations, the core/non-core definitions, the global phrase, and the interval rules are anchored verbatim.
Source: pdf-raw/vaccine-guidelines/wsava_vaccination_guidelines_2015.txt (landed 2026-08-09).
Claims (verified C1 substrings of source_file — paraphrase mode)
core vaccines as those which ALL dogs and cats, regardless of circumstancesor geographical location, should receiveall dogs throughout the world mustcanine distemper virus (CDV)canine adenovirus (CAV)canine parvovirus type 2 (CPV-2)feline parvovirus (FPV)feline calicivirus (FCV)feline herpesvirus-1 (FHV-1)should be considered core for both speciesnon-core vaccines as those that are required by only those animals whose geographical location, local environment or lifestyle places them at riskCore vaccines should not be given any more frequently than every three yearsshould be administered annually