Heartworm and Multi-Parasite Protection: Comprehensive Pet Care

Protecting your dogs and cats from heartworms and other parasites is one of the most important things you’ll do as a pet parent. In this blog, the team at MarketPlace Veterinary Hospital will share why it’s so crucial—and how you can minimize the risks for your pets.

Parasite Awareness

Understanding which parasites can be the most harmful to your pet is an important part of awareness. Before we talk about prevention, let’s look at key parasites for both dogs and cats:

• Heartworm (Dirofilaria immitis): Infects a dog’s heart, lungs, and blood vessels. Can also affect cats. Spread by mosquitoes.
• Roundworm (Toxocara cati, Toxascaris leonina): Lives in a cat or dog’s intestines and can give them a bloated appearance. Spread by the feces of infected animals. 
• Hookworm (Ancylostoma): Hooks onto cat and dogs’ intestines and feeds on the blood, causing anemia. Larvae usually enter through a pet’s feet or mouth from contaminated soil. 
• Whipworm (Trichuris vulpis): Lives in the large intestine and can cause irritation and diarrhea. Transmitted through a pet’s interaction with contaminated soil.
• Tapeworm (Dipylidium caninum, Taenia species, and Echinococcus species): Can cause growth stunting in puppies and kittens but isn’t usually serious in adult pets. Spread when a pet ingests an infected flea.
• Fleas (Ctenocephalides felis, Ctenocephalides canis): External parasite that feeds on your pet’s blood, causing irritation, itchiness, and skin infections.
• Ticks, including dog tick (Rhipicephalus sanguineus), Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum), and deer tick (Ixodes scapularis): Feed on your pet’s blood. Can transmit serious diseases to both cats and dogs, including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, cytauxzoonosis, and tularemia. 

Keep in mind that this isn’t a complete list, either! There are thousands of potential parasites out there. The good news is that an ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure when it comes to pet parasites. 

Pet Parasite Prevention

Of all the pests listed above, ticks and heartworms can be the most dangerous—and fleas one of the hardest to get rid of. Thankfully, there’s effective prevention for all three of these common pet parasites.

Heartworm preventive medication works by killing off larvae before they can mature into adulthood and start causing serious problems. Kittens and puppies should begin receiving heartworm preventives as early as possible—ideally, before they’re eight weeks old. 

Any later, and heartworms may already have begun maturing to adulthood, which means preventives won’t work to get rid of them. If your pet is older than eight weeks and you’re unsure when they last had a heartworm preventive, take them to the veterinarian for heartworm testing. 

If test results show your pet is not infected with larvae or adult heartworms, your veterinarian will prescribe preventive medication. If your pet is infected, treatment must begin as soon as possible. 

Flea and tick preventive medications are often bundled into one product. They work by killing flea larvae and adult ticks. This makes it difficult for the parasites to infect your pet. Talk to your veterinarian about the best flea and tick preventives for your cat or dog. 

Symptoms of Parasite Infections in Pets

Parasites come with all sorts of potential symptoms. Many don’t crop up until your pet is very sick, which is part of why prevention is so important. 

If your cat or dog is showing any of these signs of illness, schedule an appointment with your veterinarian right away: 

• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Scooting
• Bloated belly
• Weight loss
• Itching/skin irritation
• Worms in stool
• Bloody stool
• Respiratory issues

The veterinary team at MarketPlace Animal Hospital is here to help pet parents in the greater Sacramento area with parasite prevention and treatment. Call us at 916-939-1705 to schedule a visit for your furry friend.