Heartworm disease prevention Heartworm infection can cause serious and life-threatening illness for your dog, and once infected, treatment can also be dangerous also. Therefore we recommend that all dogs should receive heartworm preventatives from 12 weeks of age to protect against these parasites. Cats have a much lower incidence of developing heartworm disease - please talk with us to determine whether your cat should be on a preventative medication... If your dog is older than six months of age and has not already started on heartworm prevention, a blood test will be necessary before starting these preventatives - this blood test can be completed in a standard consultation. The test involves clipping a small amount of hair from your dog's foreleg, sterilising the skin, and taking a very small amount of blood from the cephalic vein. This blood is then combined in a test kit with a reagent solution, and the result of the test is known in about 5 minutes. The blood test result: It is good news if only one band on the right of the test window - this test is negative. We would then start your dog on heartworm prevention, and plan to retest in about 6 months time to ensure that he or she is still heartworm negative Two bands in the test window indicates that your dog is heartworm positive. Further testing may be necessary to determine the exact number of worms present, and once this is known, a plan for the treatment of your pet will be formulated. If only one or two worms of just one sex are present, it may not be necessary to treat for adult heartworm, but it is certainly essential to prevent any further worms from developing to the adult stage. We will advise you on the best course of action in the event of a positive test result. Preventative medication: There are a number of options available for heartworm prevention, ranging from daily tablets, to monthly tablets, chewables and 'spot-on' preparations, to an annual heartworm prevention injection. We've found that most people prefer the convenience of the monthly preparations or annual injection. These also have the advantage of being slightly more flexible - there is no concern if you are a couple of days late in dosing your pet with monthly medication or having the yearly injection administered, whereas a missed daily tablet may lead to heartworm infection. Monthly heartworm prevention medication also comes in combination forms - tablets for heartworm prevention and control for most of the gastrointestinal worms, and a 'spot-on' formulation which covers for both heartworm and external parasite protection. We can give you more information about these products if you are interested. An important point to note: "Allwormer" medications, while successfully controlling gastrointestinal worms, does not offer any protection against heartworm. Further information about heartworm disease can be found in our dog petcare section . Some images on this page are courtesy of Fort Dodge Australia (makers of ProHeart), and Agen, suppliers of heartworm antigen test kits.
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