A puppy or kitten’s first year packs in more veterinary spending and more frights than any other year of their life, with the possible exception of the last. It is also the year in which the decisions you make — when to vaccinate, when to insure, what to leave within reach — shape much of what follows.
This guide sets that first year out in three parts: the health calendar, the real budget, and the right moment to take out cover. What it does not contain is prescriptions: your animal and your vet will settle the details.
The first-year calendar
The first visit usually happens within a few weeks of the animal arriving home. It covers a general examination, confirmation of microchip identification if they do not already have one, a worming schedule for internal and external parasites, and a vaccination plan set by age and region.
Vaccination is not a single injection but a course: several doses weeks apart until protection is complete, then boosters. In dogs there is also the question of the leishmaniasis vaccine, which matters across much of Spain and requires a prior test. Your vet will judge whether it is indicated given the area and the animal’s age.
Around six or seven months the neutering conversation arrives, with different considerations by species, sex, breed and way of life. And across the whole year come the growth check-ups, monitoring weight, teeth, joints and behaviour.
What that first year costs
It helps to separate the foreseeable from everything else. On the foreseeable side, our own guide to vaccination prices in Spain puts a full first-year course at between 100 and 180 euros for dogs and between 90 and 150 euros for cats. From adulthood, annual boosters run to somewhere between 40 and 90 euros depending on which vaccines the animal needs.
Add to that regular worming, the microchip if it has not been fitted, growth check-ups and, when the decision is taken, neutering. These figures vary a great deal by region and by practice, so the reliable route is to ask your own clinic for its price list before committing.
The unforeseeable part is what wrecks budgets. A puppy that swallows a sock, a fracture from a fall off the sofa, gastroenteritis after eating something in the park: none of these appear on any calendar, and depending on the case they run to hundreds or to thousands of euros.
The accidents young animals actually have
There is a recognisable pattern. Foreign bodies top the list: socks, hair ties, small balls, fruit stones, string and — in cats — thread and elastic bands, which are especially dangerous because they can damage the intestine in several places at once.
Then come household poisonings — chocolate, xylitol found in some sugar-free products, grapes and raisins, onion, certain cleaning products and a number of houseplants — and injuries from falls, misjudged jumps, and unprotected windows and balconies.
Prevention here is not theoretical: picking up what sits at their height, closing off access, choosing correctly sized toys and securing windows heads off most of these emergencies. It is worth an afternoon before the animal comes home.
When you can insure, and when you should
You can do it earlier than most people think. Petplan’s health policy takes dogs and cats from 2 months old, and up to 7 years at the point of enrolment; rabbits up to 5. A newly arrived puppy is already old enough to be insured.
Doing it early matters for two reasons. First, the waiting periods: 15 days for accidents and 30 days for illness, the latter applying only to the first policy year. Second, and more important, pre-existing conditions: anything that has already produced symptoms or a diagnosis before the policy starts falls outside cover, with this insurer and with every other.
A young, healthy animal is simply the best moment there is: no history weighing on the file, the waiting periods running while risk is still low, and no race against a diagnosis. With Petplan, reimbursement can reach 100% of covered costs, with an annual limit of €3,100 and a €45 excess per illness rather than per visit.
What stays outside cover, first year or not
This is where nearly all the misunderstandings come from, because much of a first year’s spending is preventive and a health policy covers accidents and illness. Excluded are worming and flea control, microchipping, routine or preventive visits, dental cleaning and neutering.
Vaccines also sit outside the core cover. Petplan offers an optional health and vaccination plan that reimburses 100% of the cost of vaccines prescribed by your vet, the leishmaniasis vaccine included, up to 90 euros a year; it has to be added deliberately and renews each year alongside the policy.
Put another way: insurance is not there to fund the predictable calendar. It is there so that the day your puppy swallows something, the decision is not made by looking at the price. They are two different pockets, and both need planning.
Four things you will be glad you did
Register the microchip in your name with your regional register, not only at the practice. From day one, keep the vaccination card, invoices and clinical reports in one place, because those are exactly the documents a claim asks for. Make sure the annual check-up includes the mouth, since dental treatment is only covered if there has been a dental examination in the 12 months before the signs appeared.
And take out the policy while the animal is healthy, before there is anything to write in the history. It is the only one of the four that cannot be done later to the same effect.
