Dangers for Dogs: Heartworm

Heartworm, a preventable, painful and in many cases a deadly disease. Heartworm can be found in both dogs and cats.

Taking proper care of your dog(s) means heartworm preventative medication. This is bought at your vets office and comes in either chewy pills called heartgard or a liquid that you put on the back of their necks called revolution. I have changed to the revolution as it is cheaper for me when treating my two personal dogs and any foster that I have. Revolution deals with preventing fleas, ticks and heartworm.

One simple prevention not only saves your pet from a painful recovery or death and saves you an extremely high vet bill. In some cases if a  heartworm infestation is to advanced, the treatment will be infective and the dog will have to be put to sleep.

We recently had a dog at the shelter go into foster care as he had been at the shelter for a very long time and was showing kennel stress. He went to a great foster home where he was doing awesome and the kids just adored him. He went in for his neuter and heartworm test, while recovering at the shelter waiting to go back to his foster home his test results came back in, Butch/Baxter was advanced heartworm positive. With a heavy heart this little guy had to be put to sleep. The children in his foster home were heartbroken. A simple one pill or drop(s) a month could have prevented this from happening.

Baxter/Butch

Heartworm is passed to a dog through mosquito's. It is 100% preventable. When a dog in Canada is found to be heartworm positive and starts treatment it is a long and painful task. The dog goes in for weekly treatments and has to remain completely at rest between treatments. Treatments can go on for years. The cost in Canada is about $3000.00 to treat heartworm. Preventative is about $100.00 per season depending on how many dogs you have.

Please save your dog(s) and family heartache; use heartworm preventive every year!!

More information from the OSPCA on heartworm.