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OUR APPROACH TO HEARTWORM PREVENTION

Heartworm disease is found in this area and does affect dogs, foxes, wolves, coyotes, bears, and rarely in people, cats, bobcats, ferrets, mink, sea lions, seals and the horse.

The worm is spread by the bite of a mosquito sucking up the immature larva from an infected host. This larva then under goes further development within the mosquito until it reaches an infective stage. The next time the mosquito bites a victim the infective larva is injected into the new host. The larva then moves to the right side of the heart and blood vessels going to the lungs where it develops into an adult. If enough worms of both sexes are present reproduction takes place and microfillaria are the result, waiting for the next mosquito to bite and spread it to other animals.

It has become common practice to recommend year round heartworm preventative and justify it by saying you can stop testing thus saving money. We couldn’t disagree more. 6 months of preventative is $40.00, testing is $20.00 so you are out and extra $20.00 each year that you don’t test but do go year round. We suggest testing every other year so now you have 100.00 for two years versus $160.00 for year round preventative.

There is no medical reason to justify year round prevention of heartworms or round worms due to the extreme winters we have here.

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