Heartworm, ticks and trips: a vet clinic's spring calendar

Ten days ago the Companion Animal Parasite Council published its 2026 Annual Pet Parasite Forecasts. The headline will not surprise anyone who has run a front desk through the last few springs: the council says recent warming and extreme weather “have accelerated seasonal activity and geographic expansion of many vectors”. For a general practice, that is a marketing calendar as much as a clinical one.

Spring is when the year’s wellness visits bunch together. Heartworm tests, flea and tick refills, boosters and the paperwork owners need before summer travel all land between April and early July. The clinics that have a smooth spring set it up in March. Here is how we would schedule it.

What the forecasts say, region by region

The CAPC forecasts are built on a large base: the council says over 10 million diagnostic test results per vector-borne disease are reported to it each year. Three points from this year’s release matter for planning:

• Heartworm keeps moving north. CAPC expects risk to keep spreading northward along the Mississippi River corridor and up the Atlantic coast.
• Lyme disease stays a northern problem, and a bigger one. Risk remains highest in the Upper Midwest and Northeast, with expanding risk across Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio.
• The season starts earlier. Accelerated vector activity means the first tick and mosquito questions arrive before many reminder lists go out.

The American Heartworm Society’s advice to owners has not changed: test every 12 months and give prevention 12 months a year, “even in regions of the country where winters are cold”. The Society notes heartworm has been diagnosed in all 50 states. That is the message to carry, and it gives a clinic in Ohio or Pennsylvania a reason to speak up as early as one in Louisiana.

What changes by region is timing. A Gulf Coast practice is already in season; its March message is “your test is due”. A practice in Minnesota or Maine has a few weeks more, and its message is “book before the rush”. Same facts, different week.

Late March to mid-April: get the reminder list out

The annual heartworm test is the visit that pulls everything else in: the exam, the boosters, the prevention refill, often the dental conversation. So the reminder for it should be the best piece of marketing the practice sends all year.

Three things make it work:

1. A booking link in every message. The AVMA’s 2025 report found only 33.4% of practices offered online appointment scheduling. A reminder that says “call us to book” is read at night and forgotten by morning. If your practice management system cannot take online bookings, a reply-to-book text that a person confirms the next day still beats a phone number.
2. Staggered sends. If the whole list goes out on one Monday, the phones jam and the April slots fill unevenly. Split it by due month and send a week apart.
3. The right first sentence. Lead with what is due for that pet by name. “Biscuit’s heartworm test is due” reads like a note from the clinic; a line about parasite season in general reads like an ad.

This is also the moment to check what happens when the reminder works too well. With roughly 13 to 14 appointment slots per full-time vet on a weekday, as the AVMA puts it, a good spring can push the next wellness slot three weeks out. Decide now which visits can be technician appointments and which need a vet.

April into May: your profile has to match the season

Owners who have never been to you search in spring too: the family that moved in March, the couple whose old vet retired, the puppy owner. Most of them meet you first on Google.

• Update photos and services. Add the services spring searchers ask for, such as heartworm testing, tick prevention and vaccines, to your Business Profile, and post a short update about the forecast in your area.
• Keep reviews current. In February, BrightLocal reported that 74% of the people it surveyed pay attention only to reviews from the past three months. Spring visits are the best source of fresh ones, so ask after every appointment.
• Set holiday hours early. Easter and Memorial Day closures confuse Google and owners alike. Enter special hours a few weeks ahead.

If you run search ads, spring is when to point them at the services with room, such as a new-client wellness exam or a puppy package, rather than at your clinic name, which you should already own in the map results.

June and the Fourth of July: travel season sends owners to you

Before a summer trip, many owners discover their kennel or pet sitter wants proof of vaccines. Colorado’s pet care facility rules are a clear example: boarding, training and grooming facilities must keep records of a current rabies vaccine for dogs, cats and ferrets over 16 weeks old, current distemper and parvovirus vaccines for dogs over 8 weeks old, and a current FVRCP vaccine for cats. Other states and individual kennels have their own versions.

AAA projected a record 72.2 million travelers over last year’s Fourth of July week, from June 28 to July 6. Many of those households have a pet that stayed behind with someone who needed records. Send a “traveling this summer?” message in late May with a link to request records and book any booster that is due.

Two more summer items to prepare in spring:

• Fireworks. The ASPCA warns that loud music, fireworks and noisemakers frighten pets. Have a page and a phone script ready for anxious owners, and decide how after-hours calls will be handled that week.
• Algae and yard products. The ASPCA lists blue-green algae among its top 10 deadliest pet toxins, and the Pet Poison Helpline says it sees more summer calls about yard and garden products. Clinics near lakes should publish a short page in May, not after the first case.

What we are telling clients

• Read the CAPC forecast for your county and write one plain sentence about what it means for local pets.
• Send heartworm and booster reminders in two or three waves starting this week, each with a booking link or reply-to-book option.
• Decide which spring visits can go to technicians so new clients are not pushed out a month.
• Add spring services and holiday hours to your Business Profile before April.
• Draft the late-May travel and vaccine-records message now, and the fireworks after-hours plan with it.

A clinic that sets this up in March spends April seeing pets instead of returning calls. Our veterinary clinic playbook lays out the whole year, and the reminder sequences above are the kind of thing we build in GoHighLevel on top of the system a practice already runs.