The normal route is practice to practice
When you register with a new vet, the standard and simplest path is to let the two practices handle the transfer: give the new practice your old practice's name and contact details, and they will request the clinical history directly. Practices do this constantly — for house moves, second opinions, and referrals — and the request carries the professional expectation that a complete history follows the patient. You may need to confirm you consent to the transfer, and your old practice may contact you to verify it, which is a safeguard rather than an obstacle.
Register and start the request before you need an appointment if you can. A history requested during a calm registration arrives in time for a routine first visit; a history requested while your dog is already unwell in the new waiting room starts the new vet working partially blind.
Ask for your own copy as well
Do not rely solely on the practice-to-practice route. Ask your previous vet for a copy of the records for your own file — you are entitled to know what is in your dog's history, and your own copy is insurance against delays, practice closures, or a transfer that turns out to be incomplete. Keep invoices and vaccination proof too; they sometimes capture dates and details that summarised notes compress.
When the records arrive at the new practice, it is worth one direct question at the first appointment: 'Did the full history come through?' If the answer suggests only a summary came, ask the new practice to re-request the complete file, or supply your own copy to fill the gap.
Know what a complete history actually contains
Check the transfer against the pieces a new vet genuinely needs. Vaccination dates and what was given. Diagnoses and how they were reached, including blood results, imaging, and lab reports rather than just conclusions. Surgeries and anaesthetic notes. Any drug reactions or known sensitivities. Current and recent medications, and the management plans for ongoing conditions — the skin protocol that finally worked, the weight target agreed, the monitoring schedule for a heart murmur. Behavioural notes matter too: that your dog needs a muzzle for nail care, or panics in kennels, is clinical information the new team will be glad to have before they discover it themselves.
Bridge the gap in person at the first visit
Records, however complete, arrive as documents. At the first appointment, give the new vet the two-minute spoken version: the ongoing issues in order of importance, what is currently being treated or monitored, what you are watching at home, and anything scheduled — a booster due, a recheck planned, a prescription running out. That conversation turns a file into a working relationship and often prompts the vet to check for parts of the history that have not yet landed.
Moving practice is also the moment records most often quietly fragment, with early puppy notes stranded at a first vet and specialist letters at a referral centre. KinsLe's Pet Passport keeps the copy you hold gathered as one portable packet across every practice your dog ever attends, so his history stays whole even when his vets change.