Parasites are a continuous threat to your dog's health and comfort, ranging from an inconvenient annoyance to potentially life-threatening. In this blog post, our West Chester vets discuss how dogs become infected by parasites and why parasite control is essential to keeping your canine happy and healthy.
Dogs & Parasites
After a parasite invades your dog's body, it feeds on its resources, often jeopardizing your pet's health by stealing its nutrients. Some parasites cause severe, irreversible damage to your dog's organs.
Dogs can contract various types of parasites, such as heartworms, hookworms, tapeworms, ticks, fleas, and lice. In this post, we'll cover common parasites, emphasizing the importance of parasite control in dogs to protect their health and explaining how your vet can help you keep parasitic infections at bay.
How Your Dog May Become Infected
Did you know that your dog doesn't need to interact directly with other animals to acquire a parasitic infection? This is because parasites can be passed from mother to child in utero. Insect bites are another potential mode of transmission.
Here are a few parasites that are often diagnosed in dogs:
Heartworms
Mosquitoes often spread heartworms, which get their name from their unfortunate habit of making their home in the heart muscle. Heartworms can then grow, reproduce, and spread throughout a dog's body.
Heartworms can often be found in an infected dog's heart, lungs, and blood vessels. This parasite can be difficult to diagnose since symptoms often do not appear until the infection has significantly advanced. These worms can cause massive damage to internal organs. However, people are unlikely to become infected.
Roundworms
This parasite is frequently transmitted through eggs that are excreted and subsequently swallowed by the new host animal (in this case, potentially your dog). A mother dog may also transmit roundworms to her young before giving birth.
Capable of surviving for weeks without a host, the eggs also pose a risk of infecting humans, especially children. Roundworms have the potential to stunt growth and leave infected dogs with a pot-bellied appearance. Additionally, worms may exit the body from both ends.
Hookworms
These horrifying creatures can infect your dog by entering its system through the consumption of an infected mother's milk or eggs or by burrowing into the skin. Little vampires sustain themselves by entering the GI tract, tearing holes in the lining, and feeding on the blood of animals, causing ulcers.
Young puppies are at risk of deadly consequences, while adult dogs may suffer from anemia. Additionally, these vile creatures can burrow into human skin. Sandboxes, like roundworms, are notorious for serving as vectors of transmission—raising the question of why we allow kids to play in them.
Fleas
The classic pest that infests your dog's fur. They are normally an annoyance, constantly biting and causing skin irritation. They can be a disease vector for tapeworms.
Ticks
These little bugs bury their heads into the flesh of their victim. They can spread Lyme disease and can attack humans.
How to Prevent Parasites in Dogs
After realizing the numerous parasites that can affect our four-legged friends and understanding their potential impact on health, dog owners naturally ask how they can prevent their pup from becoming infected with parasites in the first place. Incorporating parasite control into your dog's routine healthcare is essential.
To protect your dog against parasites, ask your vet which parasite prevention products they recommend for your pup. Take your dog to your vet for an annual wellness exam, your veterinarian can give your dog any shots they may need, examine your dog for signs of parasites, and run any necessary diagnostic tests to identify parasitic infections. Our veterinarians can recommend suitable parasite control measures or products based on your location, your dog's risk factors, health status, and more.
Feel free to ask any questions or concerns about parasite prevention and control; we're here to help.
Note: The advice provided in this post is intended for informational purposes and does not constitute medical advice regarding pets. For an accurate diagnosis of your pet's condition, please make an appointment with your vet.