Worm In Pups Poo.

[GeorgieB]

Hi guys, just after some worming advice. I took Reggie out this morning to find a disgusting long white worm in her poo.

After searching Dol, I think it's roundworm?.. She is 10 weeks old and not due for another worming untill 12 weeks I believe. Should I worm her now, or wait?

Also, if worming her now, Is it a good idea to do the cat too?

Thanks guys!

[Tralee]

Hi GeorgieB

It could just be the result of previous worming.

Better out than in.

This from my dogs website:

Deworming

Most puppies are infected with worms.

Puppies should be regularly dewormed and their droppings disposed carefully.

Deworm puppies every 2 weeks until 12 weeks of age with a good quality ALL WORMER, such as Drontal, Milbemax, Pyraquantel or Popantel. Drontal is available as a liquid for very small puppies.

ALL WORMER’s should then be given at 12 weeks, 16 weeks, 6 months and then 3 monthly for life. Alternatively, Interceptor Spectrum is given monthly.

Beware of supermarket brands as many of them do not control all types of worms and require large numbers of tablets to be given.

Please ask your veterinary clinic for advice.

Edited August 20, 2012 by Tralee

[Dame Aussie]

When was she last wormed?

[GeorgieB]

Thanks Tralee. She was last wormed at 8 weeks Aussie3.

The Drontal wormers I have state 2 4 8 and 12 weeks so she hasn't been wormed for 2 weeks. Do you suggest I worm her now?

[Rebanne]

I would worm her again and then at 12 weeks. And there is nothing worng with supermarket brands but you can usually find cheaper on the internet.

[Dame Aussie]

Yep I'd worm her now and then again in two weeks.

[GeorgieB]

Thanks for the advice guys, I'll worm her today then. I got the drontal off the internet. It's an all wormer (no heartworm, mdr1 sensitive breed and too young for heartworm preventative I think?) So it should do the trick :)

Should I worm our cat too? He is done reguarly and was last done less than a month ago.

[Dame Aussie]

I don't see that it could hurt to worm kitty too.

Drontal is fine, I have an Aussie too and due to the MDR1 use Sentinel Spectrum which covers fleas and all worms, incl heartworm. It doesn't contain any ivermectin :)

[GeorgieB]

I plan to switch to Sentinel Spectrum too. I'm sure I read that heartworm preventative was not to be used on young pups, so I went with the drontal this time.

Perhaps I should be using it already? I might do some more research into it I think.:)

[Dame Aussie]

They can have it from 6 weeks :) I think ours started a bit later than that but I can't remember :laugh:

You just do it by weight. This link has the details.

http://ah.novartis.com.au/verve/_resources/Sentinel_Spectrum_Tasty_Chews_for_Dogs_LEAFLET.pdf

[GeorgieB]

Oh right, it must have been really young pups then :laugh:

Thanks for that Aussie3, for the link too. I can't look at it properly, my phone is terrible. So I will have a good look tonight!

Wish I bought the spectrum instead of the drontal now :)

[Rebanne]

your pup doesn't need heartworm prevention yet. Sorry but I have a horror of animals being bombarded with a heap of chemicals when they are not needed. A simple worming tablet is all that's needed right now.

[GeorgieB]

Thats what I would have been reading, Rebanne, and why I bought drontal in the first place. I also intended to switch to the non flea version of sentinel spectrum (forgotten the name of it) and only treat for fleas when they appear.

At least the drontal isn't a waste then :)

What age do they need to start heartworm prevention?

[minimax]

What age do they need to start heartworm prevention?

Personally, this time of year I'd be starting heartworm, even if under 6 months of age, because the mozzies are starting to come out (depending on where you live).

I just started my 4.5 month old, even though I'd normally wait until closer to 6 months.

[Rebanne]

Thats what I would have been reading, Rebanne, and why I bought drontal in the first place. I also intended to switch to the non flea version of sentinel spectrum (forgotten the name of it) and only treat for fleas when they appear.

At least the drontal isn't a waste then :)

What age do they need to start heartworm prevention?

I would never start before 4 months of age. Usually closer to 6 months depending on the time of year and where you live. My last pup would have been started at near 5 months, sometime in November last year.

[GeorgieB]

I'll hold off the heartworm until she's a bit older then.

Thanks for the info Rebanne and Minimax :)

[**Super_Dogs**]

I'll hold off the heartworm until she's a bit older then.

I would get some advice from your vet what is recommended for your area.

Up here in sunny Qld my vet recommends commencing heartworming at 12 weeks.

[dancinbcs]

Thats what I would have been reading, Rebanne, and why I bought drontal in the first place. I also intended to switch to the non flea version of sentinel spectrum (forgotten the name of it) and only treat for fleas when they appear.

At least the drontal isn't a waste then :)

What age do they need to start heartworm prevention?

Drontal is a far better intestinal wormer than any of the wormers in the combined drugs so if she has worms, stick to the Drontal tablets for now until you fix the worm problem.

[Steve]

Roundworm and hook worm work by the lavae sitting around in the bitch and "turn on" crossing the placenta in the last couple of weeks of pregnancy and they also sit in the mammary glands so puppies can be infected before birth and they get it via the milk. Its all about how the Mum was managed when she was a pup and it is also affected by how many litters. Sometimes the first litter will have a higher worm burden than the later ones. You can test the bitch prior to breeding and whelping and she will show clear of worms but the lavea is waiting to cause a problem and the meds don't clear it out of the placentas in that part of the life cycle. So if you have a bitch pup with round worm or hook worms she will usually have worms when she whelps.

This one explains it.

http://www.marvistav...___puppies.html

The worm you have seen is not left over as a worm from the last worming but it means that the part of the life cycle they were up to on last worming wasn't able to be taken out by the meds and so you need to worm every 2 weeks for the next 6 weeks to get rid of them regardless of which part of the life cycle they were in. But remember by then they will have migrated so for all intents and purposes she is all clear and nothing you can do about anywhere else they are and they sit dormant until she is pregnant and off they go again.

[Steve]

Heart worm in SA?

Heartworm

by Dr. Martin Goldstein

The Nature of Animal Healing

To judge by your local veterinarian's stern insistence on regular heartworm pills for your dog, you'd think we're in the midst of a brutal epidemic, leaving piles of the dead in its wake. I think there's an epidemic, too, but of a different sort: of disease-causing toxicity instilled in our pets by heartworm preventative pills.

Granted, heartworm is a serious condition. An infected mosquito bites your dog (cats are rarely affected), injecting microscopic worms that first hibernate, then gain access to his bloodstream. The worms find their way to the heart, where they grow to as long as twelve inches, constricting the heart's passages and causing symptoms that range form coughing to labored breathing to hart failure. If the image of giant worms literally blocking the life blood of your dog isn't horrifying enough--and it can seem more so when viewing a real heart preserved in a jar of formalin, on display in a veterinarian's office as a sales tactic for heartworm preventative--the fact that they spawn hundreds of thousands of baby larvae, called "microfilaria," which circulate through the bloodstream, is nothing short of grotesque.

A few caveats are in order, however. Only a small percentage of dogs who get heartworm die of it, especially if they're routinely tested twice yearly for early detection. Even in untreated dogs, after a period of uncomfortable symptoms, the adult worms die. The microfilaria do not grow into adult worms on their own. To reach the next stage in their life cycle, they have to be sucked back out of the body by another mosquito, and go through the other stages of their maturation process within the mosquito. Only when that mosquito alights again on a dog and bites it can the microfilaria reenter the bloodstream with the ability to grow into adults. The chances of a microfilaria-infected mosquito biting your dog the first time are slim. Of it happening to the same dog twice Very slim. And after two decades of pervasive administration of heartworm pills in the U.S., the chances of your dog contracting heartworm in most parts of this country even a first time are slimmer still. Early in my career, I saw and treated hundreds of cases of heartworm disease, most with routine medication, yet witnessed only three deaths (the last was in 1979). By comparison, we're seeing cancer kill dogs on a daily basis. To my mind, the likelihood that toxicity from heartworm pills is contributing to the tremendous amount of immune suppression now occurring, especially in cases of liver disease and cancer, is far greater and more immediate than the threat of the disease they're meant to prevent.

The most common form of heartworm prevention is a monthly pill taken just before and during mosquito season. (Many veterinarians recommend giving it year-round, even in areas of the country that experience winter.) Its toxins--ivermectin, for example--sweep through the body, killing any microfilaria that have been introduced by mosquito bites in the previous month, and thus preventing the growth of adult worms. Some brands also contain other toxins to kill intestinal parasites. The other approach to treatment is with a daily dose of the drug diethylcarbamazine, starting several weeks before mosquito season. The drugs called for in either course of treatment are, simply put, poisons. Unfortunately, while they kill off microfilaria, they have the toxic effects of poisons, and can be especially damaging to the liver. I've saved a 1987 product evaluation for diethylcarbamazine mixed with oxibendazole, a preventative also used for hookworm. The evaluation, published by the company itself in a medical journal, reported that of 2.5 million dogs give the stuff, the company received only 176 reports of problems. Including cases of liver toxicity and fatalities. To me, 176 is too many. But also, how many more went unreported? The evaluation concludes, "Of course, not all incidences are reported to the manufacturer, so the true magnitude of occurrence is really unknown." The manufacturer would argue, no doubt, that many of the symptoms I've seen cannot be linked in any provable way to any of the heartworm preventatives. Perhaps--though the anecdotal evidence has long since persuaded me not to put dogs on the stuff. But I have seen one obvious, immediate effect of these once-a-month preventatives in case after case: when you give a dog that pill, over the next few days, wherever he urinates outside, his urine burns the grass. Permanently! In some cases, you can't grow grass there until you change the soil. What, I wonder, can it be doing internally to your dog in that time?

When the first daily preventatives came out, my brother and I witnessed evidence of hemorrhaging in the urine of several dogs put on them. We stopped the medication; the bleeding stopped. We started it up again; the bleeding resumed. When we reported this to the manufacturer, we were informed that the company was aware of the problem from other complaints. Aware--but not about to pull its product form the shelves. All we could do was to stop giving the medication ourselves to the dogs we treated. Since then, the company has changed ourselves to the dogs we treated. Since then, the company has changed the product, diminishing this side effect and bringing it into the realm of acceptability for use in areas of high heartworm incidence.

The dogs I treat form puppy hood receive no heartworm preventative pills. It may be said, of course, that I practice in an area where cases of heartworm are pretty infrequent. But while my clinic is in Westchester County, just north of New York City, my practice encompasses patients from around the country. In the last decade, 98 percent of my patients, on my recommendation, have not been given heartworm preventative. In that time, I've seen less than a handful of clinical cases. Two of them I treated herbally, starting with heart support supplements (a heart glandular, vitamin E, Co-Enzyme Q IO) and regular doses of black walnut, and herb known to kill parasites. (It comes in a liquid extract form; I recommend putting a dropperful in the food or mouth at each meal.) The third I treated medically, with a new drug (Immiticide) reported to be a lot less toxic than intravenous arsenic, at a lower-than-recommended dosage. All three are clinically normal--no evidence of heartworm recurrence--years after treatment.

Excerpted from The Nature of Animal Healing by Martin Goldstein Copyright© 2000 by Martin Goldstein. Excerpted by permission of Ballantine, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.