Your dog cannot tell a new vet what happened last winter. Your cat is not going to mention the antibiotic that upset their stomach two years ago. That job falls to you, and on the day it matters it comes down to whatever you can produce while a vet waits.
Most people have the records. Somewhere. A PDF the lab sent on WhatsApp, a photograph of a discharge sheet in the camera roll, a printout in the drawer under the passports, an email from a clinic that has since shut. The records existing was never the hard part. Finding the right one in five minutes is.
So: what to keep, how long each kind stays useful, and why the copy sitting with you is the one that survives.
Why old paperwork is worth anything at all
One visit is a snapshot. The same test across three visits is a pattern, and patterns are what get acted on.
The International Renal Interest Society, whose staging system most vets use for chronic kidney disease, stages it on blood creatinine measured on at least two occasions in a stable, well-hydrated animal. Not one reading. A single value is genuinely ambiguous, and the useful signal is direction. We have written separately about what creatinine is and why vets track it over time, the clearest example of a number that says little on its own.
That is the case for keeping things. A vet who can see last year's panel reads today's against your animal's own history rather than a blank page.
What to keep
The vaccination card and the rabies certificate
Keep the original document, not the reminder sticker. In India this is the paper you are asked for most often, usually at short notice: by the housing society registering a dog, by a boarding kennel the week before you travel, by whoever handles the paperwork when a pet moves cities with you.
The WSAVA vaccination guidelines ask that a vaccination record show what was given and when, including the product, so a vet seeing the animal later knows exactly what has already been done. Without it the cautious call is often to vaccinate again, and "we could not find the card" is a poor reason to give an animal something they did not need. Shelters fight this at scale, and some of what they do works in a house with two pets: how shelters track vaccinations.
Blood and urine reports
Every panel, kept whole. Blood counts, biochemistry, urinalysis, thyroid panels, faecal tests.
People underestimate this category because a report from two years ago feels expired. It is not. It is the baseline. The American Animal Hospital Association's canine life stage guidelines treat wellness blood work as part of routine adult care, and the point of screening a well animal is to have something to compare against later.
Keep the whole page. The pet's name, the sample and report dates and the lab that ran it are what make two reports comparable at all. The range printed beside a result belongs to that lab and that machine, and your vet reads the value against that printed range and the animal in front of them. A photograph with the header cropped off is less useful than it looks.
Imaging, and the report that came with it
X-rays and ultrasound scans live on the clinic's machine and do not follow you home unless you ask. Ask for the images and the written report. A radiologist reading a new scan wants the old one beside it, and "there was an X-ray a couple of years ago" is not something anyone can work from.
Diagnoses, discharge summaries and treatment plans
If your pet was hospitalised, ask for the full discharge notes rather than the one-line summary. These record what was found, what was ruled out and what the plan was. The ruled-out part is quietly valuable years later, when a similar sign turns up and nobody wants to work through the same list again.
Surgery and procedure notes
What was done, when, and by which surgeon. Anatomy does not reset. A vet who meets scar tissue or an old orthopaedic repair needs the story behind it. Keep the sterilisation certificate here too. Societies, adoption groups and boarding facilities ask for it more often than you expect.
The medicine history
A running list of what your pet has been given, with the dose, when it started and how long it ran. Include supplements. The Merck Veterinary Manual notes that a previous adverse reaction is important information when a new drug is being chosen, so anything your animal reacted badly to belongs at the top of that list rather than in your memory.
Dental notes
Keep the dental chart, the notes from any scaling, and the record of which teeth came out. The Merck Veterinary Manual describes periodontal disease as the most common dental condition in dogs and cats, and notes that its effects are not confined to the mouth, with severe disease associated with changes in organs such as the kidneys, liver and heart. That is part of why vets treat dental work as medicine rather than grooming.
Specialist reports
A cardiologist, dermatologist or oncologist produces a written report, and it usually contains findings your regular vet wants to see. Ask for a copy for yourself, and check your own vet has one. Referral letters travel less reliably than everyone assumes, and you are best placed to close that loop.
The identity paperwork
Not medical, but asked for at the same moments: the microchip number and registration, adoption or purchase papers, the insurance policy, and any health certificate issued for travel. Moving a pet between cities by air or rail usually means a fitness certificate from a vet plus proof of rabies vaccination. Check that list with the carrier each time rather than assuming last year's still holds.
How long each one is worth keeping
Most versions of this advice come with tidy numbers. Honest durations are less tidy.
| What it is | How long it stays useful |
|---|---|
| Vaccination card and rabies certificate | The animal's lifetime, and asked for at short notice |
| Blood, urine and faecal reports | The animal's lifetime. The old one makes the new one readable |
| Imaging and the radiologist's report | The animal's lifetime. New scans get read against old ones |
| Surgery and procedure notes | The animal's lifetime. Anatomy does not reset |
| Diagnoses and discharge summaries | The animal's lifetime, including what was ruled out |
| Medicine history | The animal's lifetime for anything they reacted to |
| Dental, specialist and referral notes | The animal's lifetime |
| Microchip and sterilisation papers | For life. Insurance while the policy runs |
| Routine visit notes and weights | Keep them. Slow changes show here first |
| Reminder cards and appointment slips | Until the next one supersedes them |
| Boarding and grooming paperwork | Until the stay is over |
The working rule is short. If a vet wrote it or a lab printed it, keep it for the animal's life. If it is an administrative reminder, keep it until it is replaced. Old reports take up almost no room. A baseline you no longer have cannot be recreated at any price.
Where these records actually live, and why that is fragile
By the time a pet is three or four, their history sits in three or four places, none of them under your control on the evening you need it.
The clinic file. Your vet's practice holds the primary record, kept for their clinical use. Practices are busy. They also move premises, change software, merge and sometimes close, and a clinic shutting takes its filing cabinet with it. That is not anyone's failure, just how small businesses work.
WhatsApp and the camera roll. A large share of Indian lab reports arrive as a WhatsApp attachment. Media does not survive a phone change reliably, chats get cleared, and searching a two-year-old thread while standing in a consulting room is nobody's idea of a system. The camera roll is fine too, right up to the evening the phone is lost, dead, or in your bag while you are holding a cat.
Paper. Paper works and then stops working. It fades, it goes missing in a house move, and a cupboard in Mumbai in August is not kind to it.
Each of those is a single point of failure. The records are real. It is their availability that keeps breaking.
The case for holding your own copy
Your pet's history should travel with your pet rather than stay with a building.
Three situations make the point. An emergency at 11pm at whatever clinic is open, where the vet has never met your animal and has no idea what is usual for them. A move to another city, where a good practice still starts from nothing unless you bring the past with you. And a specialist appointment, where a full prior record means the consultation begins from the animal's own history rather than from the beginning. Insurance claims run on dated documentation too, and the owner is the one who can hold a complete set.
This is the problem GatherPet was built for. You forward each report to your pet's private address as it arrives, or photograph a paper one and upload it, and it files itself under the right animal, by category, by the date printed on the document rather than the date you sent it. Anything unclear waits in a tray for a single tap instead of being guessed at. At an appointment you share one link per pet, and your vet opens it in a browser with no app and no account. The originals stay as they arrived, links can carry a password or be expired and revoked, and you can download everything any time.
It does not have to be us. It does have to be somewhere you can reach from your phone in a consulting room, with the dates intact, for the whole of your animal's life.
If what you want next is the method, gathering up what is already scattered and building a habit that survives a busy Tuesday, that is written up separately in how to organise your dog's lab reports before a vet visit. This piece is the what. That one is the how.
Frequently asked questions
What pet health records should I keep? The vaccination card and rabies certificate, every lab report, imaging with its written report, discharge summaries and diagnoses, surgery notes, a medicine history, dental notes and any specialist report. Keep the microchip details, sterilisation certificate and insurance policy with them.
How long should I keep my pet's medical records? For anything a vet wrote or a lab printed, the animal's lifetime. Old reports are not expired, they are the baseline that makes a new report readable. Reminder cards and appointment slips can go once the next one arrives.
Do I need my own copy if my vet already has one? Yes, and it is not a comment on your vet. The clinic's file is kept for the clinic's use, practices move and change systems, and you may be somewhere else on the night it matters. Ask for a copy at the end of each visit. Most clinics send it without chasing.
My clinic sends reports on WhatsApp. What should I do with them? Move each one out of the chat the day it arrives, into an email folder or a cloud drive. The same-day part is the habit. A report left in a thread is one you will be hunting for in eighteen months.
What if the clinic we used has closed? Ask anyway. Staff often move to nearby practices and can say where the files went, and the lab that ran a test may reissue a report if you give them the animal's name and roughly the date. Keep your own copy of what you recover.
What happens to my records if I stop paying? With GatherPet they stay readable and downloadable whether or not you have an active subscription, and nothing is deleted because a subscription lapsed. An account is only removed after two full years with no sign-in at all, with warnings first, and one sign-in resets that clock. Ask any service the same question before handing it years of history. Our pricing is public and the trial runs without a card.
The part you can control
Your vet reads the results. What happens to the page afterwards is yours, and it needs no expertise, only somewhere reliable to put things.
Keep the whole page, keep the dates, and add the next one as it arrives. Years from now, someone in a consulting room will be glad you did.
GatherPet organises and relays what your pet's reports say. It does not diagnose, does not interpret results, and is not a substitute for your veterinarian. Anything about your individual animal, including what any value on their report means, is a conversation for your vet.
Sources: International Renal Interest Society (IRIS) staging guidelines for chronic kidney disease in dogs and cats. WSAVA vaccination guidelines for dogs and cats. American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) canine life stage guidelines. Merck Veterinary Manual, on periodontal disease and on adverse drug reactions.