My Cute Pet
Kangle, the cutest dog in my opinion and one of my best friend in my life and my youngest sis even consider her as one of our family member. She has been with us for many years and she knows how to make us smile by doing all those cute tricks, and when we are sad, she will come and comfort us by licking our face or just simply stay beside us to lend us her strength.
However, I have to admit that I am not the very best owner, as most of the caretaker job was taken care of by my dad and my sis. They will bath her, feed her, and taking care of all her medical needs. So, the other day when my dad asked me to buy her heartgard. I just say ‘ ok ,ll do’ but I have no idea what is that and what is the purpose of it. I only find out the importance of it after I talked to the owner of the pet shop. So, I want to share with all dog lovers and dog owners the importance of giving your dog a heartworm prevention pill every month.
So, what is heartworm??
Heartworm is a dangerous disease in dogs or cats where the parasite invade to the dogs’ heart. Normally, cats are more resistant to heartworm than dogs. The life cycle a heartworm in a dog is 6-8 months while in a cat is 8 months. The heartworms can survive for about 5 years in a dog’s heart and reach a length of 12 inches. ( SCARY!!!!!)
1) The larvae of the heartworm will be transmitted to the dog whenever a heart-worm transmitting mosquito bite the dog.2) The larvae will incubate in the body of the dog for a few days.
3) if left ignored, the adult worms will emerge after 3-4 months time and it will be transported to the rest of the body until they reach the heart.
4) Once the parasites find their way to the right ventricle, they will duplicate in numbers.
5) There may be no symptoms at all in an infected dog until the disease is in a more advanced stage. The symptoms are :
- Coughing - Shortness of breath
- Tiring easily
- Loss of appetite
- Weight loss
- Nervousness
- Anaemia
6) Heart failure and pulmonary clotting may develop in the advanced stages, and this may lead to death.
Treatment of Heartworm
Heartworm can be prevent easily but is difficult to treat. The treatment is complex and often dangerous and the treatment may lead to complications and death. For the 1st thing, the dog must be healthy enough to be begin with, so if the dog has any organ problem, all those problems must be treated 1st.
2 treatment steps is involved:
1) Kill the adult worm ( adulticide therapy)
– This can be done by using very potent arsenic compounds like thiacetarsamide sodium or melarsomine dihydrochloride either intravenously or intramuscularly.
- The dog must not be allowed for exercise for 2 weeks after the treatment
- The dog may experience fever, loss of appetite, cough and expectoration of blood.
2) Filaricide therapy
- This is done to 3- 6 weeks after the adulticide therapy to kill the microfilaria.
- Options that are available are ivermectin and milbemycin.
Prevention of Heartworm
There are many preventive medicine for heartworms in the market. For example, Heartgard (ivermectin) and ProfHeart (moxidectin). Preventive drugs, when administered monthly are highly effective and I will be sure to give my dog one dose every month =)
* The pictures used are adapted from google image
Image via Wikipedia
