HeartWorm
– January 21, 2017 Toby –
Wow, Johnnie and I were watching a video the other day about heart worm. Now I know why I go the vet for the occasional checkup. Anyway, heart worm is some serious stuff that can drastically affect our lives. So, make sure you humans pay attention to mosquitoes and such. The heart worm is transported by mosquitoes and when mosquitoes are out in an area where there are lots of us pooches, then we might have a risk of infection.
When I was younger, you could get over the counter heart worm meds, now you need to see the vet. Like anything else, if there is no risk then meds are not necessary. Like take winter for instance. How many of these pesky little flying biters are there? None, so the question is, and this depends on where you live of course. When do mosquitoes become active? Now after watching the video, we know each stage takes time. So, once mosquitoes are active in high risk areas, we should be taking our meds as prescribed. According to the map, the areas I hang out in in California are low risk for infection.
I live in areas where mosquito control is pretty effective and the lake at Joanna’s is salt water, so the risk is low. However, Johnnie moved inland near the river so even with a mosquito control plan, there are still plenty of mosquitoes. Johnnie leaves the spider webs around the doors where mosquitoes linger awaiting humans. But mosquitoes are no match for spider webs so there haven’t been any pesky biters in the house. That doesn’t mean I don’t get bit when I stop for sniff during a walk along the river.
Now, I don’t take the meds, but I do get a regular check up at the vet with an annual heart worm test. Early catch and treatment is very effective. Ignoring the problem leads to a slow painful death for us companions, so either give us some meds (wait, I keep forgetting that at this age in human years I would have gone to high school in the 70s) or get us tested and treated when necessary. We’d do it for you, but we don’t have opposable thumbs.
