You have so much to keep track of with your new puppy. We have talked about feeding, and toilet training your new friend. What about the gross stuff? Keeping your puppy, and family parasite free?!
We are going to dive straight into the gut of your puppy and chat about INTESTINAL WORMS (Endoparasites).
There are four intestinal worms we routinely cover – Roundworm, Hookworm, Whipworm and Tapeworm.
Some important things to know:
- Puppies can contract worms from their mothers while in utero or through their milk. Therefore, ALL puppies should be wormed as juveniles.
- Humans can contract worms from dogs and their environments. So it is highly important to ensure we are worming our pets to reduce the environmental contamination to the human family members.
Puppies need fortnightly oral worming from 2 week to 16 weeks of age. Usually, they will have had worming treatment given before moving into your home. After which, it will be up to you to take over their needs. Ask our team to help decipher your puppies’ parasite prevention needs by getting in touch – email, phone or the good old “drop in”.
From 16 weeks of age most dogs are moved on to a monthly preventative such as NextGuard Spectra chews, or Advocate topical spot on, which are combined parasite preventatives – we chat more about this below.
Next, we move onto the creepy crawlies of ECTOPARASITES. These are the typical external parasites we want to protect our animal from, such as fleas, mites, and lice. Not all parasite treatments are created equal. We recommend options that will not only kill off any adult fleas, but also reduce the overall environmental load by rendering the adults “infertile” so when they lay eggs, these will not hatch.
DON’T FORGET – If you are planning on moving interstate or travelling with your dog, make sure you have chosen preventatives to cover for other important parasites that are local to the areas you will be visiting. The most important of these is PARALYSIS TICK in Queensland and along the eastern coast of Australia. As part of your travel plans, we recommend a consultation to discuss your needs.
If you are choosing to administer routine flea prevention, we recommend a monthly administration. This brings us back to combined parasite prevention options of NexGuard Spectra or Advocate. Compliance and cost is improved when combining the preventatives with such products PLUS they both also cover the dreaded HEARTWORM!
A common misunderstanding is that HEARTWORM is a parasite that is transmitted from dog to dog, and many people feel they can avoid preventatives if their pet does not come in direct contact with other dogs.
THIS IS NOT TRUE!
Heartworm is transmitted by Mosquitos. Therefore, anywhere there are mossies, your pet can be exposed. As mentioned, the combined preventatives will cover heartworm when used monthly as directed.
The risk of heartworm is South Australia is low, but not absent. If a dog was to contract heartworm, the consequence could be serious as it can cause heart failure. Therefore, if nothing else, we recommend you make sure you cover your dog for heartworm prevention.
We all know life is busy!
If you think you may forget to consistently administer a combined monthly treatment the Proheart SR12 Injection preventative is for you! This is an injection that will protect an adult dog from heartworm infection for 12 months. We can also give this injection to puppies from 12 weeks of age, and will repeat the injection 6 months later so that we can take into consideration their growth and weight change.
Daunted yet? Don’t worry, we are here to help you make the bet choice.
Get in touch to chat with our team about your lifestyle choices and answer some simple questions to work out the choice we recommend for you and your puppy.
