The boarding kennel's form asks for proof of rabies, distemper, and bordetella. You know your dog has had all three — you were there, holding the leash. Proof, though, is a PDF attached to an email from your vet sometime in 2024, and the line behind you is not getting shorter while you search your inbox for "canine."
The good news: pet paperwork is a small, stable set of documents. Get copies once, keep them findable, and every future kennel form, groomer intake, and new-vet visit becomes a ten-second job.
The six pet documents worth keeping
| Document | Why you'll need it |
|---|---|
| Rabies certificate | Boarding, grooming, travel, dog licensing — and in most places, the law. Note the expiration date on the certificate itself. |
| Vaccination history | Kennels and daycares usually want distemper/parvo and bordetella too; a new vet wants the whole record. |
| Microchip registration | Proves the chip is registered to you, with a phone number that still works. |
| Adoption or purchase papers | Ownership proof for licensing, insurance, travel, and the rare dispute. |
| Insurance policy | The policy number and coverage details, findable at the emergency vet at 2 a.m. |
| Medication list | Doses and schedules for sitters, boarders, and any vet who isn't your usual one. |
A few of these deserve a closer look.
The rabies certificate is the one document nearly everyone asks for, and the one with a trap in it: it expires. Rabies vaccines are typically given on a one- or three-year schedule, and the certificate states which. A kennel doesn't care that your dog "had the shot" — they care that the certificate is current on the day you drop off. Check the date now, not at the counter.
The vaccination history is more than rabies. Boarding and daycare places commonly require distemper/parvo combos and bordetella (kennel cough), and some want bordetella given a certain number of days before arrival — which means finding this out the morning of drop-off is finding it out too late.
Microchip registration is the quiet one. The chip in your pet is only as good as the registry entry attached to it, and that entry has your phone number and address from whenever you registered it. It's worth checking any time your details change — updating the registry belongs on the same checklist as forwarding your mail when you're moving house.
The medication list matters most for the pets that seem healthiest. If your cat takes half a pill of anything daily, write down the drug, the dose, and the schedule, and keep it with the rest — the person who needs it will be a sitter or an unfamiliar vet, not you.
Getting the copies you're missing
This part is easier than it feels. Your vet clinic keeps everything — every vaccine, every visit, every prescription — and will email you a vaccination history or the full record if you ask. Most clinics can do it the same day, and many have online portals where you can download it yourself.
If your pet has seen more than one clinic over the years, each previous one can send what it has. For the microchip, your vet record or adoption papers usually list the chip number; the registry's website will confirm it's registered and let you fix stale contact details. Adoption and purchase papers are harder to replace, which is exactly why they belong in the digital pile — the shelter or breeder may or may not still exist in five years.
Traveling with a pet needs a thicker folder
Boarding is the everyday version of this problem. Travel is the advanced level.
For domestic flights, airlines generally require a health certificate — a vet's signed statement that your pet is fit to travel — issued within a short window before the flight, often around ten days. Current rabies proof rides along with it. Rules differ by airline and change, so check yours when you book.
International travel is a different animal entirely. Depending on the destination, you may need an endorsed health certificate, proof of specific vaccines, parasite treatments on a set timeline, or a rabies blood test that has to be done months before departure. The USDA APHIS pet travel site lists requirements by country; read it early, because some of these steps simply cannot be compressed. The paperwork here is one place where originals matter — carry the physical endorsed certificate, not just a photo of it.
Make it findable from your phone
Here's the actual fix for the boarding-desk scramble: the desk doesn't want your paper — they want to see proof, and your phone is already in your hand. So the goal is a complete digital copy of the six documents above, reachable in seconds.
The habits are the same ones that work for storing your own vaccination records on your iPhone: photograph or save each document once, and keep the set somewhere better than your camera roll or a two-year-old email thread. Treat the pet folder as a small satellite of your own medical records — gathered once, then only touched when something new arrives from the vet.
This is also the kind of pile Paperlock was built for. Save the rabies certificate and it reads it — who issued it, which pet, when it expires — and files it behind Face ID with no folders or naming on your part. Because it notices expiration dates, it reminds you 30 days and 7 days before the rabies certificate lapses, which is how you renew on a calm Tuesday instead of discovering the problem at drop-off. And at the desk itself, you just ask: "show me Milo's rabies certificate" — the answer comes with the document attached, ready to show or share as a PDF. That's the whole idea of the app, and it's coming soon to iPhone.
The one-evening version
- Email your vet: "Could you send Milo's full vaccination history and rabies certificate?"
- Photograph the adoption papers, insurance policy page, and anything else still living in a drawer.
- Look up the microchip registration and fix the phone number if it's old.
- Write the medication list, even if it's short. Especially if it's short.
- Put it all in one findable place — and check the rabies expiration date before you close the folder.
Twenty minutes, most of it waiting for the vet's reply. The next time a kennel form asks for proof, you'll have it before the person behind you finds their leash.