Pet Wellness: Tips on How to Protect Your Dog From Heartworm Disease
Warmer weather conditions and longer days arrive with the shift of the seasons. Pesky insects, on the other hand, are inescapable. Critters aggravate your dog, and they can likewise be extremely harmful. Mosquitoes are the only means of transmitting the heartworm parasite.
What is Heartworm disease?
Dirofilaria immitis, a parasitic worm transmitted by mosquito bites, causes heartworm illness, which can be deadly. The heartworm life process begins after a mosquito bite. Tiny larvae (referred to as microfilariae) move through the circulation to get to the heart or lungs. There, they develop into grown-up heartworms.
They are known as heartworms because they stay in an animal’s heart, lungs, and blood vessels. If your pet is infected, the parasite develops, mates, and reproduces within your pet, making it a definitive host.
Heartworm Prevention for Your Dog
Preventing heartworms is a year-round endeavor. If you’re looking into this potentially dangerous ailment, you should start there. When it involves safeguarding your dog against fatal parasites that can create lung ailments, heart failure, and other body organ damage, you are the only one who has the power to do it.
The good news is heartworm conditions can be avoided. Heartworm illness can be avoided in a variety of ways.
Preventive Medication
Although it may seem simple, heartworm prevention in pets is frequently forgotten. Many different types of preventative products are offered for your dog’s use. Topically or orally, they can be used.
Preventative heartworm therapy is much cheaper than having a dog admitted to an emergency veterinary cardiology hospital after making a heartworm medical diagnosis. Preventive medicine can make a big impact on the life of your pet.
Repel Bugs in Your Home
Mosquitoes are just one of the most common carriers of heartworm in your dogs, so it’s important to keep them away whenever possible. Maintaining mosquitoes out of your home and your pets’ environment might be challenging. Mosquitoes can be lowered around your residence, but eliminating them is a near-impossible job.
Keep your home and yard free of any stagnant water. Pesticides can additionally be sprayed around your house if it is pet-friendly.
Regular Visits to the Veterinarian
It would be best to take your pets to vets in Stroudsburg, PA, regularly. Up to the age of 16 weeks, you need to bring your pet for vaccinations every three to four weeks; past that, an annual visit is advised. Heartworm tests should be done consistently to maintain your dog secure and healthy.
Heartworm screening can be done at any vet hospital, but therapy differs depending on whether the animal has been infected.
Keep the Routine Each Year
If your dog has a heartworm condition, it may have long-term effects on their health and quality of life, so it is vital to keep them on preventive medicine. In dogs, heartworms create in six months and can remain in the body for up to seven years, reproducing constantly. One year later, dogs can have hundreds of these parasites inside them, but the average is about fifteen.
Suppose your dog is taking heartworm preventative medication. In that case, veterinarians from veterinary internal medicine in Stroudsburg suggest that you have it tested every year, even if your dog is already heartworm free.
Bottomline
Maintaining your dog’s heartworm-free is the responsibility of a veterinarian. You should give them a prophylactic treatment, visit the veterinarian frequently, and keep the bugs out of the house. Heartworm prevention can be as basic as including garlic in your pet’s food.
