Do you give your pets Heartworm Preventatives

[JillC]

All 3 of my dogs get Heartguard chews every month plus flea (I think advantage) meds. Would not want to take any chances on one of my babies getting sick. Too many dogs die from heartworms because their people don't care enough to take care of the babies.

[Tom & Jake]

Yep once a month Heartguard! Wouldnt miss it...

[Mundt]

Our first GS, Joey, had heartworms, and survived the treatment by the time we got him. So for the rest of his life we treated him with Heartgard. Our second GS Casey also. With our present, Major, APL had treated him with a combination heartworm, flea and tick. So with him we went with Revolution. Recommended by our vet, and a woman who works in his office uses it on all the dogs she owns.
Revolution is more reasonably priced than Heartgard and it's companion Frontline. It only costs an arm as opposed to and arm and a leg.

[dogangel]

Yep.All six of them are on both Sentinel (for any kind of worms, not only heart worms), and Frontline for fleas and ticks. I will not take any chances. I don't want my babies to get sick.... and we live in the deep South, and God knows there are gazillions of crawling and flying pests out here...

[Sheppy Mom]

It's almost scary how many differing veterinary opinions there are regarding if, how, and how often we should use HW preventative. As a result, it seems that there is no ideal solution other than to do what we as individuals feel is best.

My dogs get Interceptor once a month like clockwork--no forgetfulness here. I prefer the smaller doses because I don't think any living creature should be subjected to that much foreign substance in one shot (except for penicillin, like when I had strep throat, but that's another story. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] )

My dogs stay on Interceptor year-round because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I will do everything in my power to prevent my pups from getting such a horrible disease.

I will continue to have my dogs HW tested yearly. I don't think $80 ($40 per dog) a year is too much to spend if it means keeping them healthy.

[JeanKBBMM]

I am wondering why some vets don't recommend as well-are there areas in this country where there are no mosquitoes? If so...that sounds great!

I have a heartworm positive foster right now and I have to say-taking care of them is frightening. I give everyone credit who has taken dogs through treatment. I now know what a challenge it is. Of course, when you look at this amazing dog who is a victim of circumstance, there's not much you can do but try.

Here is something called an incidence map from http://www.heartwormsociety.org/cani....htm#treatment that I thought was interesting. Not exactly sure how to interpret it fully (I get the dark areas have more HW...not sure about the areas with none-maybe no reported cases?)


[ July 08, 2004, 03:06 PM: Message edited by: JeanKBBMM ]

[JeanKBBMM]

Originally posted by JeanKBBMM:

Not exactly sure how to interpret it fully (I get the dark areas have more HW...not sure about the areas with none-maybe no reported cases?)

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yeah-must be no reported cases, which if you aren't testing for it, you won't have any. Or maybe I am inferring too much from the fact that WVA has less than others in the area. I am assuming that is because they are not testing for it.

Yep. Tested every year, then Heartgard from April through October.

[juliakl]

I give my three dogs monthly Heartgard year-round because Louisiana is full of mosquitoes year-round. These suckers (literally!) are HUGE.

With GSD rescue, I fostered several GSDs and one Rottweiler (at least she was black & tan!) who had to go through heartworm treatment. It was awful because even though they were all relatively young -- 2 to 4 years old -- there was no guarantee that they would make it. It's a two month process, so that is a long time to be paranoid about every cough and their lethargy while being treated.

The Rottie did not make it. [img]graemlins/bawling.gif[/img] She had come so far in such a short period of time. It makes me so angry that her previous owner cared so little for her. [img]graemlins/angryfire.gif[/img] Seeing a dog suffer from heartworms and/or from treatment is no fun, folks.

If you live in the south, I recommend giving your dog(s) Heartgard every month.

Julia

[MyDogsMom]

Personally I would be giving my dogs the preventive if I lived in an area that showed the mosquitoes that carry that nasty stuff by the above map. My hubby brought home a purebred Shih-Tzu Aug 4 03, that was in very bad shape!! She had been "dumped", the hair was so matted that the only way to get her clean was to clip down to the skin! Including her tail. On Aug 6 03 I took her to the vet (1st app I could get) and found out she was heartworm positive. The vet asked if I wanted to give her up since I only had her 2 days, I said no way. The vet told me the worms were so bad that Chancey (the dog) would have to go through a 2 phase treatment, it would be very expensive and she may not beable to handle it because of the other health issues besides. I told her I didn't care and needed to try. This poor thing was a snuggle-bug from the very beginning and looked at you with nothing but pure love! Well, as of Mar 8 04 Chancey is offically heartworm free and all other issues are gone as well, except for being allgeric to flea saliva. So I tend to be quite fanatic about using a prevenative. I never want to go through that again!!!