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What to use, how often, and the signs that say do it now.
De Pet Valley · · 3 min read
Phone a vet before buying anything if the dog is a young puppy, if you can see worms, or if there is ongoing diarrhoea, vomiting, blood in the stool or weight loss.
Worms are common in dogs, and deworming is routine rather than dramatic. Which product to use and how often to repeat it are decided by your vet or by the label on the pack — and a young puppy showing signs of worms is a call to the vet before it is a trip to the shop.
Dogs here pick up a handful of common intestinal worms. Roundworm is the one most people have seen — long, pale and noodle-like, sometimes turning up in vomit or in a stool. Hookworm and whipworm live in soil and are picked up off ground where other dogs have been.
Tapeworm is the odd one out. A dog usually gets it by swallowing an infected flea while chewing at an itch, and it shows up as small rice-like segments stuck to the fur near the tail or dried into the bedding.
Heartworm is a different thing again. It is spread by mosquitoes, it does not live in the gut, and an ordinary intestinal dewormer does not touch it. Worth knowing so you do not assume one pack covers every parasite a dog can carry.
Puppies carry a heavier worm burden than adult dogs, and many of them start life with one. Roundworm can pass from the mother to her pups before they are born and again through her milk, so a litter is normally treated on the assumption that worms are already there rather than waiting for proof.
That means the first few months run on much shorter intervals than an adult dog will ever need, spacing out as the puppy grows. The actual schedule is your vet's to set. It hangs on age and weight, and both of those change week to week at that stage.
A worm-heavy puppy can go downhill fast, because it is small and has almost nothing in reserve. A pot belly on a thin puppy, loose stools, or worms you can see are reasons to phone a vet, not reasons to work through it at home.
The obvious signs are the visible ones: worms in a stool or in vomit, or rice-like tapeworm segments around the back end. Scooting along the carpet gets blamed on worms constantly, though full anal glands are the more common cause of it.
The quieter signs are a dull coat, weight loss in a dog that is eating normally, an on-and-off upset stomach, or a swollen belly on a puppy. Every one of those can also be something else entirely, which is exactly why a vet is the right person to ask.
A dog can carry worms and look perfectly well. That is the whole argument for treating on a routine rather than waiting for a symptom to appear.
There is no single interval that fits every dog. It depends on age, weight and how the dog lives. A scavenger, a hunter, a farm dog or a dog walked daily in busy public places is exposed far more than one that stays in its own garden.
It also depends on the product. Different actives cover different worms and state different intervals, and the pack tells you both — which worms it treats, and how often it is meant to be repeated. Read that each time rather than assuming the last pack's routine still applies.
Dewormers are dosed by body weight, so guessing the weight is guessing the dose. Weigh the dog instead of estimating, particularly a puppy or a large breed that is still growing into itself.
If tapeworm segments keep coming back, the worm is the symptom and the fleas are the cause. Treating the dog over and over while the fleas carry on will not end it. The flea side has to be handled too, along with the bedding and wherever else the dog sleeps.
Some dog worms can infect people, and small children are most at risk because they play in the same soil and are less careful about their hands. Picking up in the garden, keeping sandpits covered and washing hands after handling the dog does most of the work.
Other animals in the house matter as well. Worms move between dogs sharing a garden, so a plan that covers one dog and skips the others tends to come undone.