Caring for working dogs
Everything You Need to Know About Heartworm and Your Dog
Jose Reid
As a dog owner, you want to make sure that your pet is healthy and happy at all times, and this means preventing your dog from contracting common diseases. One condition that you should be on the lookout for is heartworm.
What is heartworm, and how is it caused?
Heartworm is a serious, potentially fatal disease caused by parasitic worms that live in the arteries and hearts of animals, including dogs of all sizes and breeds. There are some mosquitoes that carry heartworm larvae. If one of these mosquitoes bites a dog, the larvae can enter blood vessels via skin tissue. It takes around six months before the larvae fully mature and take hold of the pulmonary system.
What are the symptoms of heartworm?
In the first stages of infection, your pet may not actually show any visible symptoms of having heartworm, but some things to look out for include having a cough, getting more out of breath than normal when exercising and temporarily passing out. If any of these symptoms occur, be sure to take your dog to a vet right away.
What can be done to prevent heartworm?
The good news is that heartworm is both preventable and treatable. As a first action, visit your vet to see what medications could be a possibility for your dog. There are oral and topical options, and your vet will be able to recommend something depending on the size and breed of dog you have. It can be worthwhile to go down a preventative route because although heartworm is treatable, by preventing heartworm in the first place, your dog won't have to go through any unnecessary discomfort, and it's also less costly to prevent rather than to treat an existing condition.
Other precautions you may want to take are controlling the amount of mosquitoes inside your home and in your garden. In terms of your garden, you can purchase certain insecticides that will control the number of mosquitoes, but you need to be very careful that the insecticide you choose is safe for dogs, so run that by a vet before you commit to purchase. To limit mosquitoes in interior spaces, make sure that your gutters are clean so that no mosquitoes are tempted to make it inside your home space, and also add mosquito screens to windows so that you can keep windows open during the hot Australian summer without risking an infestation of mosquitoes.
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We've always had a large property and our dogs are working dogs. They like to have freedom to run around and play with each other as well as helping us round up the sheep at the end of the day. We don't coddle the dogs by any means, but we do care for them deeply and want them to stay healthy. Sometimes our dogs do get into scrapes and do some silly things, like last year when my older dog ate some baited meat from a fox trap, and do need vet care. This blog has some tips on getting veterinary care for your beloved animals.