Best Heartworm Prevention For Puppies

Few things in life are as exciting or rewarding as welcoming a new puppy into the family. They’re adorable, they’re loving, they’re funny – and they’re also counting on you to help protect them from parasites and diseases. Here’s a quick look at common and preventable parasites and diseases and how you can start heartworm prevention.

Heartworm Disease Transmission

Heartworms are transmitted by mosquitos, and the worms live in the heart and lungs of the dog.

Clinical signs seen in dogs include cough, difficulty breathing, weight loss, exercise intolerance, and eventually heart failure and death. Unlike intestinal parasites, which can be easily treated, treatment for heartworm disease is expensive – up to $1,000 in veterinary bills²– time-consuming and has significant side effects. Fortunately, highly effective preventives are available for this devastating disease. The American Heartworm Society recommends using a heartworm preventive year-round to protect your dog. Ask your veterinarian about this and how you can make sure you are working on heartworm prevention correctly.

Worms: Worth Worrying About

Intestinal parasites, including roundworms and hookworms, can cause serious problems in puppies. Roundworms are commonly diagnosed in puppiesand may infect 90% of puppies under three months of age.⁶Intestinal parasites cause more severe disease in young puppies. Clinical signs include failure to gain weight, poor hair and coat, and vomiting. Some puppies may even die from roundworm infection. Hookworms are another intestinal parasite commonly seen in puppies. Infected puppies may develop diarrhea, anemia due to blood loss, and fail to gain weight. Hookworm infection can also result in death. Ask your veterinarian about proper deworming protocols for puppies. You can reduce the risk of exposure to these intestinal parasites by avoiding potentially contaminated environments and promptly removing feces from the yard or other public areas. Ask your veterinarian about placing your dog on a heartworm preventive that is labeled for the treatment and control of roundworms and hookworms.

How Do Dogs Get Heartworms?

Only by the bite of an infected mosquito. There’s no other way dogs get heartworm. And there’s no way to tell if a mosquito is infected. That’s why prevention is so important. Heartworm disease has been reported in all 50 states. And the bite of just one mosquito infected with the heartworm larvae will give your dog heartworm disease. Heartworm disease has not only spread throughout the United States, but it’s also now found in areas where veterinarians used to say “Oh, we don’t have heartworm disease.” Areas like Oregon, California, Arizona, and desert areas — where irrigation and building are allowing mosquitoes to survive. And if you have mosquitoes and you have animals, you’re going to have heartworms. It’s just that simple.

It takes about seven months, once a dog is bitten by an infected mosquito, for the larvae to mature into adult heartworms. They then lodge in the heart, lungs, and surrounding blood vessels and begin reproducing. Adult worms can grow up to 12 inches in length, can live 5-7 years, and a dog can have as many as 250 worms in its system.

Can People Get Heartworms From Their Dogs?

It can only be passed on by mosquitoes. It’s a specific parasite that only affects dogs and cats and ferrets and other mammals. In rare cases, heartworms have infected people, but it does not complete its life cycle. The heartworm will migrate to the lung and cause around lesion that looks like a tumor. But these are very rare cases.

Heartworm Prevention

If One of My Dogs Has Heartworms, Can He Give it to My Other Dogs?

No. Again, the only way heartworms are transmitted is through the bite of an infected mosquito. And even if an uninfected mosquito bit your infected dog, and then bit your uninfected dog the same night, he wouldn’t transmit the parasite from one dog to the other. That’s because when a mosquito bites an infected animal, the heartworm needs to undergo an incubation period in the mosquito before the mosquito can infect other animals.