Dyrlegen kontrollerer poten, såret og symptomet før vaksinen.

Dyrlegen means the veterinarian / the vet.

It is built from:

• dyr = animal
• lege = doctor
• dyrlege = veterinarian
• dyrlegen = the veterinarian

Norwegian often makes compound nouns by joining words together into one word. So where English might use two words, Norwegian often uses one.

Those endings show the definite form, which usually corresponds to English the.

In this sentence:

• dyrlegen = the vet
• poten = the paw
• såret = the wound
• symptomet = the symptom
• vaksinen = the vaccine

Unlike English, Norwegian often puts the at the end of the noun instead of using a separate word before it.

This is because Norwegian nouns have grammatical gender, and the definite ending depends on the gender.

Very simply:

• many common gender nouns take -en in the definite singular
• many neuter nouns take -et in the definite singular

So here:

• en pote → poten
• et sår → såret
• et symptom → symptomet
• en vaksine → vaksinen

This is something learners usually have to memorize with each noun: not just the noun itself, but also whether it is en or et.

Kontrollerer is the present tense of å kontrollere = to examine / check / inspect.

So:

• å kontrollere = to check
• kontrollerer = checks / is checking

Norwegian verbs do not change according to the subject the way English verbs sometimes do.

For example:

• jeg kontrollerer = I check
• du kontrollerer = you check
• dyrlegen kontrollerer = the vet checks

The form stays the same.

Because in Norwegian, the definite article is usually attached to the noun itself.

Compare:

• English: the paw

• Norwegian: poten

• English: the wound
• Norwegian: såret

This is one of the biggest differences from English.
Instead of the + noun, Norwegian often uses noun + definite ending.

Yes, it is just a list of direct objects:

• poten
• såret
• og symptomet

In English: the paw, the wound, and the symptom

Norwegian commonly lists nouns this way, just like English. Each noun appears in the form it needs, and og means and.

Før means before.

Here it is used with a noun phrase:

• før vaksinen = before the vaccine

So the structure is:

• før
  • noun phrase

This tells you when the checking happens.

Depending on context, this could mean:

• before the vaccine is given
• before the vaccination appointment
• before that particular vaccine

The exact nuance depends on the situation, but grammatically it is simply before + definite noun.

Grammatically, vaksinen literally means the vaccine.

However, in real-life context, people sometimes use words in a slightly broader way, so it might refer to:

• the vaccine itself
• the vaccination event
• the shot/injection

If you are translating very strictly, it is the vaccine.
If you are interpreting the sentence in a medical context, before the vaccination may sometimes be what is really meant.

Yes. Såret can look confusing because it can belong to different words in different contexts.

Here, it is the noun:

• et sår = a wound
• såret = the wound

But in other contexts, forms related to såre can also appear, so learners sometimes hesitate when they see it.

In this sentence, it is clearly a noun because it appears in a list with other nouns:

• poten, såret og symptomet

So here the meaning is definitely the wound.

Yes. This is the normal main-clause word order in Norwegian:

• subject + verb + rest

So:

• Dyrlegen = subject
• kontrollerer = verb
• poten, såret og symptomet før vaksinen = the rest of the sentence

This is very similar to standard English word order:

• The vet checks the paw, the wound, and the symptom before the vaccine.

Yes, but Norwegian has special word-order rules when something other than the subject comes first.

For example, you could say:

• Før vaksinen kontrollerer dyrlegen poten, såret og symptomet.

That is still grammatical, but now før vaksinen comes first.
When that happens, Norwegian keeps the verb in the second position, so you get:

• Før vaksinen
  • kontrollerer
    • dyrlegen

This is a very important Norwegian pattern called V2 word order.

Because this is a normal list, and Norwegian usually does not put a comma before og in a simple series.

So:

• poten, såret og symptomet

This is standard.

English can sometimes use an Oxford comma (the paw, the wound, and the symptom), but Norwegian normally leaves that comma out.