Abstract

Background:
Health management, including vaccination, is essential for puppy disease prevention. Philippine data on owner practices during early puppy vaccination remain limited.

Aim:
This study assessed general health-management knowledge and practices among pet owners in Cebu and Manila, Philippines, who brought or had experience bringing 6-8-week-old puppies for routine core vaccination.

Methods:
A cross-sectional descriptive-analytical questionnaire study was conducted in 2025 among 291 adult pet owners from Cebu (n = 187) and Manila (n = 104). The questionnaire collected owner and pet profiles and 26 perception items on puppy health management. Items used a five-option Likert-type response format and a 0-4 weighted scoring scheme, with neutral/undecided assigned no score and negatively framed items reverse-coded. Descriptive statistics, domain classifications, non-parametric tests, and robust multivariable linear regression with HC3 standard errors were used.

Results:
Only 34.0% had seen the puppy's mother, 34.4% had seen littermates, and 31.6% knew the dam's vaccination status. High domain levels were most frequent for health communication, hygiene, and vaccination compliance (64.3%), health record-keeping and monitoring (63.2%), veterinary access, financial readiness, trust, and vaccine-related concerns (62.9%), and exposure control and disease-prevention practices (61.9%). Cebu respondents had higher adjusted scores than Manila respondents in several domains, including veterinary access, financial readiness, trust, and vaccine-related concerns (B = 5.194, p < 0.001) and health record-keeping and monitoring (B = 3.534, p < 0.001).

Conclusion:
Respondents generally reported favorable puppy health-management awareness and practices, but gaps remained in dam vaccination-history awareness, formal puppy-care education, preventive-care consistency, vaccine-related concerns, and financial readiness. Veterinary counseling, reminder systems, and client education materials should emphasize vaccination schedules, maternal health history, deworming, parasite prevention, hygiene, nutrition, and preventive-care budgeting.

Key words: Companion animal; General health management; Owner practices; Pet owners; Vaccination.