How To Treat The Common Worms That Can Infect Dogs

Worms are barely possible to see, but can cause severe negative effects on your pup if he has an infestation.

Luckily, there are a number of worming treatments that you can choose from that kill any worms in your fur ball’s body before they cause too much harm or damage. Make sure you’re educated to the different kind of worms and what they cause before trying to rid your pup of them – check out our previous article on that subject!

The most common worm control available is allwormer tablets. Depending on the company that makes them, they may work for intestinal worms, or both intestinal worms and heartworm. Usually, a tablet that treats both are given monthly, while a tablet that treats only one worm is consumed every 3 months. Heartworm can also be controlled with topspots, and a vet can administer a yearly anti-heartworm injection called Proheart.

In general, young puppies should be dosed twice weekly until they reach 12 weeks old, and then monthly until they hit 6 months of age. Following that, they can be treated every three months like adult fur balls.

But what happens when your pup is already infested? There are no worming treatments that are 100% effective or can kill immature worms, but worming can be done as often as four times weekly to get rid of persistent infections.

Do keep in mind, though, that heartworm is incredibly dangerous to treat. Killing these worms can cause inflammation of the blood vessels. As such, this process needs to be done under veterinary supervision. First, adult worms are killed with Immiticide, then some weeks later, immature larvae are killed with separate drugs. If your pup has not undergone heartworm prevention for more than 3 months, don’t start using preventative control without a heartworm test!

Removing and controlling worms is essential to a pup’s health. Please like and share this in order to keep other Mommies and Daddies informed!

Feature Image Source: Pixabay