Dog Worms: How To Identify, Prevent And Treat Them
Brace yourself. What I’m about to say just may ruin your morning. Dog worms are very easily spread to people. Yep, you heard me. That’s just one more reason why identifying, preventing and treating these disgusting internal parasites is of utmost importance.
In order to get rid of this common dog problem, we must first understand what to look for. Here’s a list of the 4 most common dog worms.
Most Common Dog Worms
Roundworms
This is one of the 2 types whose presence becomes known after seeing them in your dog’s stool. The adults are about 7 inches long and resemble strands of spaghetti. Yuck! Thankfully, this type of worm looks awful, but doesn’t do a whole lot of damage. Typically, they cause diarrhea, vomiting and anal itching.
Tapeworms
This is the other type that is normally found in an infected dog’s stool. There are actually a few different varieties of tapeworm out there, but the most common one is transmitted to your dog through fleas. Again, brace yourself, they can grow up to 32 inches in length! However, it’s the worm’s segments that you see in the poop. The segments resemble grains of rice and contain the tape worms eggs. If your dog is infected, you will probably also spot these “grains of rice” near your dog’s anus, perhaps on the fur around it. As with roundworms, tape worms usually only cause a little vomiting, diarrhea and anal itching.
Hookworms
Given the name because of their appearance, these parasites cause a bit more damage. They feed off of the blood of your dog’s intestinal wall, so oftentimes they appear red in color. The adults are only about ¾ of an inch long, but will cause dehydration, anemia and nutritional deficiencies, if left untreated.
Whipworms
These worms take up residence in your dog’s colon and will not be present in the dog’s stool. It also takes about 3 months for the whipworms eggs to hatch, which makes diagnosing them a bit more difficult. Adult whipworms are about 3 inches long, have a big head with a whip-like tail attached. These types of worms cause more damage than a little diarrhea, so treating an infected dog is a must.
Preventing and Controlling Dog Worms
Start Young
Most puppies have worms. If their mom had them, they will get passed along. Start your puppy on dewormer at 2-3 weeks of age. Since it takes anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months for the dog worm to show up in your puppy’s stool, treating for worms will eradicate the problem before it even begins.
Another very important reason for doing this is that an infected puppy will easily pass the worms on to other pets and even to the people in the family.
Stay On Top Of Flea Treatments
With tapeworms being a common offender, killing all infected fleas and ending the flea life cycle will control this type of dog worm. Tape worms are so easily passed from an infected to flea to your dog because fleas are ingested by your dog just through its routine licking and cleaning. Your dog’s body is an excellent incubator for worms.
Clean Up After Your Dog
As you now know, most worms are found in dog stool. By cleaning up your dog’s mess, you not only keep the worms from spreading to your family and other pets, but it also prevents reinfection. Not having the worm’s eggs just “laying around”, will go far in preventing further infestation.
Use Extra Precautions
While you’re preventing heartworms, why not use Interceptor or Heartgard Plus? These heartworm preventatives also contain ingredients that prevent a number of different types of dog worms.
While you’re getting your pup’s flea problem under control, why not use a topical like Sentinel which has a combination of drugs that kills off a variety of worms, as well.
Treating Dog Worms
Fortunately, treating worms in dogs is relatively easy. However, a trip to the vet is necessary. If you’ve only read a couple of posts on this blog, then you know that I do everything in my power to avoid those expensive vet trips! Unfortunately, those over-the-counter dewormers are just not safe. The reason is that most of them contain toluene or dichlorphen, which are extremely toxic to some dogs. I don’t want you to take a chance and have your dog be one of them. Don’t get me wrong, your vet may very well tell you to get an over-the-counter medicine to treat your dog’s worms, but that’s his or her call. There are also some great prescriptions on the market that will do the trick.
