Heartworm in Dogs: A Common Killer Lurking in Your Own Backyard

Many dog owners wouldn’t sleep nights if they knew there was a widespread, hidden, difficult to diagnose, hard-to-treat disease that could cause their beloved pet to drop dead with little or no warning. There is such a disease; it’s dangerous; it exists year-round in all 50 states, and many pet owners are blissfully aware of it.

If there are mosquitoes where you live, your dog is defenseless against it – it’s that simple. Pets in the western states are in the most danger, particularly in the warmer months and in rural areas. The disease is spreading, and veterinarians are now finding it in areas where it was rarely seen before.

That disease is heartworm. Heartworm is a common parasite spread by mosquitoes.  Once the larvae enter the dog’s bloodstream through a mosquito bite, they mature and multiply rapidly. They migrate to and attack the heart first (hence the name), then spread to the lungs, kidneys and liver. Heartworms grow from six to 12 inches long, and live five to seven years.  An infected dog can have as many as 250 worms in its system.

It’s not until the parasites have established a foothold and find their way from the heart to the lungs that dog owners start to see their affect on Fido. The initial symptom is a soft, dry cough, followed by lethargy as the worms continue to attack and weaken the dog’s internal organs. Dogs become more and more listless as the disease progresses, suffering loss of appetite, weight loss, a dull coat and difficulty breathing. Some may cough up blood or suffer fainting spells.

As these symptoms are common to a number of doggie diseases, diagnosis can prove a real challenge when the concerned owner finally brings his canine charge to the vet. Once it’s diagnosed, the disease is complicated and expensive to treat, requiring careful judgment of dosages and frequencies of parasite-killing drugs in order to fully exterminate the worms from the bloodstream. Treatment usually involves multiple veterinary appointments for x-rays, blood work and injections. The treatment is uncomfortable at best for the animal, and hard on the respiratory system of badly-infected dogs. Still, it’s an improvement over the older treatment method, which involved painful intravenous doses of arsenic.

It’s important that an infected pet be kept confined during and for several months after treatment, as the worms break into pieces when they die, and many of these pieces are big enough to cause a fatal blockage of pulmonary vessels. Most dogs that die after heartworm treatment do so because their owners let them exercise.

While most dogs will fully recover if the heartworms are discovered in time, the prognosis is not so good for those in whom the disease is advanced, and many dogs die tragically and needlessly every year. Tragically because most pet owners love their dogs like family, and needlessly because heartworm is so easy to prevent.

Any veterinarian can supply you with a preventative heartworm medication containing ivermectin, a broad-spectrum antiparasitic prescription drug to be given to your dog every month. Ivermectin will paralyze and kill any heartworm larvae that find their way into your dog’s bloodstream almost immediately. The vet can give your dog an injection, or you can buy it in convenient chewable beef-flavored tablets to give to your dog yourself at home.

The plus-formula tablets also protect your dog against round and hookworms. Watch your pet carefully to ensure it chews the tablets instead of swallowing them whole.  Some owners find it helpful to coat them in peanut butter.

Even if heartworm is less common in your area, the consequences are so dire should your dog become infected it just makes sense to protect your beloved pet against it. You can get ivermectin from your vet, or take advantage of the savings to be had ordering it over the internet, particularly if you buy the generic version. Many dog owners have discovered how cheap it is to order their own prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies online, and include their pet’s heartworm medication along with their Canadian mail order prescriptions and have it delivered right to their door at no extra cost. You furry best friend will thank you for it.