# Roundworms and dogs



## Jennifer Coulter (Sep 18, 2007)

Since the bear poo/roundworm pics it has made me wonder if my dog could have such a thing. 

I am going to the land of fleas for a month and am about to dose my dog with Revolution. I normally do not deworm or give flea meds.

I notice that Revolution gets rid of roundworms in cats, but not in dogs. I was hoping it might act as a wormer too.

So when talking about adult dogs (not puppies and not pregnant bitches) with healthy immune systems, how much do they actually need to be dewormed?

I know that the immune system is supposed to encapsulate worms in healthy adult dogs keeping them from doing damage and that worming meds only will kill worms living in the gastrointestinal tract and wont touch those encapsulated in muscle worms anyways.

What do you all think?

How many or you deworm otherwise healthy adult dogs? Any point?


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

I drop off a fecal every so often and don't worm without reason.


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## Gerry Grimwood (Apr 2, 2007)

Fecal samples only are an indicator if worms or eggs are found in it. Healthy dogs can still carry quite a load of worms with no visible symptoms, I worm adult dogs once a year because I don't believe any are worm free.

Eastern Canada is heavy with heartworm and there is no cure once they get it, actually recently BC has had quite a few cases.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

If you are giving monthly Heartgard (which you should if you're in heartworm territory), you are actually probably already deworming them each month. What you are killing depends on what you're giving. For example, ivermectin/pyrantel (Heartgard Plus, Tri-Heart Plus) deworms ascarids (roundworms), hookworms, and whipworms, but not tapeworms, but praziquantel/pyrantel/febantel (Drontal) does. Selamectin (Revolution) isn't much of a dewormer because it kills the American dog tick, Dirofiliaria heartworms, the cat flea adults and eggs, ear mites, and sarcoptic mites. 

So I'm not a deworming expert, but I don't think Revolution does much for you as a GI tract dewormer. Heartgard or Drontal would likely be better, at least on label use. But if you kill the fleas with selamectin, you are helping to prevent_ Diplydium caninum_ (one of the two most common type of dog tapeworm) because the flea is its intermediate host before completing the life cycle in the dog. That's why dogs with flea infestations often have tapes. 

Anyways, just like I wouldn't raw feed without giving probiotics, I wouldn't raw feed without giving a dewormer because of eating muscle meat, particularly if it wasn't frozen first. But less is more and we want to be judicious in our use of the stronger dewormers like praziquantel for tapes so they remain effaciacious (worms can become resistant to antihelminthics just like bacteria can be reistant to antimicrobials). I'd say get a fecal and go with what the vets in the area say, since it will vary by location what you'll want to be on the lookout for. I personally do Heartgard Plus/Frontline Plus particularly in flea/tick season if anyone's curious, but I've used K9 Advantage Multi, Revolution, and Droncit/Drontal too, especially in my fosters if they have mites or tapes.


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Gerry Grimwood said:


> Fecal samples only are an indicator if worms or eggs are found in it. Healthy dogs can still carry quite a load of worms with no visible symptoms, I worm adult dogs once a year because I don't believe any are worm free.
> 
> Eastern Canada is heavy with heartworm and there is no cure once they get it, actually recently BC has had quite a few cases.


This is true. You have to find the eggs, larva, or adults to tell and not all intestinal parasites can be found on a simple fecal float. Some take a little more advanced techniques, like your trematodes (flukes) eggs are too heavy and they don't float up to the top where the other nematode eggs would be to evaluate. 

Is the heartworm in eastern Canada from _Dirofilaria immitis_? I don't know why they couldn't be treated the same way as dogs in the US if that's the case.


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## Gerry Grimwood (Apr 2, 2007)

Yes it's from mosquitoe bites, most people use interceptor here for heartworm.

That's all I use because like you said, it does them all except tape.


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## Jennifer Coulter (Sep 18, 2007)

I do not treat monthly for heartworm, no vet in my area (I have seen several over the years) has ever reccommended it. Not very many mosquitos here. If I lived back in Ontario I would give something.

I use absolutely no medications for my dog in my area in the mountains of SE BC. Fleas are not an issue here, but dog lice does sometimes happen in the fall, but unlike fleas it is easy to treat if the dog gets it and not worth treating prophilactically according to most vets out here. Last year I visited Ontario and my MIL's farm and my dog picked up fleas (lots of untreated indoor outdoor cats), lucky for me I caught this and treated it RIGHT AWAY and it was no issue, but this year I am going the prevention route. I do not think that mosquitos are too much of an issue in Ontario this time of year either...

I was told to use Revolution as my breed is sometimes known to have the "M1 whatever it is" that dogs can sometimes have when they have Collie heritage. Also when my dog had strange, wierd health issues when he was young he was on advantage or heartguard as I was out east for the summer. 

I agree with Gerry that many/most dogs must have worms, but not sure how many have them active in the gastro system. A stool sample would give you a good idea if they are active there. Maren am I correct that it is ONLY if they are in the gastro/intestinal system that a wormer is effective anyways? NO wormer will touch worms if they are encapsulated in muscle as often happens with healthy dogs?


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> If you are giving monthly Heartgard (which you should if you're in heartworm territory), you are actually probably already deworming them each month..


I give Heartguard Plus.

So isn't the occasional fecal enough besides?


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> Anyways, just like I wouldn't raw feed without giving probiotics, I wouldn't raw feed without giving a dewormer because of eating muscle meat,


But from all that I have read of life cycles, food is not the source.... http://www.vet.uga.edu/VPP/animaldoc/worms/worms02.php


A vet said to me once "Raw food? What about the worms?" and I printed out CDC and the above pages and he had no more to say.

What am I missing?

The tapeworm thing was not applicable, I thought, to the food I give (nothing wild and no rabbits).


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## Lynn Cheffins (Jul 11, 2006)

Fecals will usually show if you have roundworms present but are notorious for false negatives for other parasite species due to life cycles(especially whipworm).
I use a broad spectrum de-wormer and follow up in three weeks, then treat again in 3 months. I also alternate de-worming products.
I use ivermectin for heartworms. I got a kennel though of notrious eaters of what-ever trespasses thru the dogyard and we are coming in contact with alot of other dogs so what I do is probably overkill for a suburban or city dog.

Connie - feed fish?
"The final hosts of broad fish tapeworms are fish-eating mammals such as dogs, cats, bears, seals, and humans."
http://animals.jrank.org/pages/1529...-Diphyllobothrium-latum-SPECIES-ACCOUNTS.html

note to self - no sushi for me...:-o


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Lynn Cheffins said:


> Connie - feed fish?
> "The final hosts of broad fish tapeworms are fish-eating mammals such as dogs, cats, bears, seals, and humans."
> http://animals.jrank.org/pages/1529...-Diphyllobothrium-latum-SPECIES-ACCOUNTS.html
> 
> note to self - no sushi for me...:-o


Only commercially frozen below zero.... or cooked or canned. JMO.


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## David Frost (Mar 29, 2006)

Since the flea is the host to the tapeworm in a dogs, one may have to treat for that occasionally. Being in a severe heartworm area, all of our dogs are on Heartguard year round. Even with that, we've had two cases of heartworm in the past 20 years, in dogs that were medicated. They (Heartguard) paid for the treatment by the way. Our dogs are required to have an annual physical and "worm" are a rare problem.

DFrost


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## Maren Bell Jones (Jun 7, 2006)

Jennifer: if you curious about your Toller, Washington State's vet school can test for the MDR-1 gene and ivermectin sensitivity. 

http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/depts-vcpl/

I don't know about the encapsulated muscle thing as we haven't quite gotten to trichinellosis yet in parasitology (I think it's this week), but along with already forwarding the bear poop pics, I'll ask our professor about the parasites that form cysts in the muscle and how they are treated, as I got some somewhat conflicting sources (below on the fenbendazole). But topical selamectin (Revolution) gets absorbed through the skin into the blood instead of orally like Heartgard, so I don't know precisely as we don't start pharmacology until next block. I'll ask!  

Connie: So if you're using Heartgard Plus, yes, you're already using an anthelminthic (dewormer) each month. It doesn't say "dewormer" since most people just think it's for the heartworms, but it gets some of the roundworms, hooks, and whips as well. If you're giving the Heartgard Plus with a fecal every 6-12 months (if your dog is coprophagic like Mike's, haha, or out in the woods/fields off leash a lot, probably more often), that is probably sufficient, Connie. That way, if tape egg packets are noticed on the fecal float, your vet can give you the Droncit/Drontal. That's what my fosters with tapes get from the shelter. The good thing is that fecal floats are usually pretty cheap (around $20-25) and don't need the animal present usually. If you're getting yearly blood work done, the eosinophil count will also clue you in that there may be parasites because they handle parasites and allergies.

There are two main terrestrial tapeworms that commonly infect dogs, though there are others. _Dyplidium caninum_ usually comes from the definitive host (the dog) ingesting the intermediate host (the cat flea or lice). Taenia species (_T. taeniaiaformis, T. pisiformis_, and _T. serialis_ are most common in the US according to my notes) are the ones sometimes called the rabbit tapeworms from dogs or cats eating rodents or rabbits. _Taenia saginata_ and _Taenia solium_ are also the kinds that use man as the definitive hosts if we eat undercooked beef and pork respectively (ya know, that one that gets 30+ feet long). I don't know if dogs can be an incidental host or not, but man is the definite host for those species (joy!). There's also Trichinellelosis, which is not as much of a problem in this country as it used to be, but that's one that gets in the muscle and stays as a cyst. This can be treated with fenbendazole (Panacur) according to some of my sources, which is a broad spectrum anthelminthic.

For fish eaters, in addition to _Diphyllobothrium latum _that Lynn mentioned, there's also the fluke _Nanophyetus salmincola_, which carries the bacteria _Neorickettsia helminthoeca_ that causes the fatal if not treated salmon poisoning in dogs. There's a couple other more exotic ones, but these are the main ones we've learned about. These are why you want to freeze pork and fish fed to dogs (and wouldn't hurt for yourself).


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Maren Bell Jones said:


> if you're using Heartgard Plus, yes, you're already using an anthelminthic (dewormer) each month. It doesn't say "dewormer" since most people just think it's for the heartworms, but it gets some of the roundworms, hooks, and whips as well. If you're giving the Heartgard Plus with a fecal every 6-12 months (if your dog is coprophagic like Mike's, haha, or out in the woods/fields off leash a lot, probably more often), that is probably sufficient


Perfect.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

In all my years with dogs I've had 2 cases of heartworm. The first case was 30 yrs ago when, around here, heartworm was considered a Southern dog problem. One case of heartworm a couple of yrs ago because I still believed that it couldn't happen during the colder months in this area. WRONG!!
One case of hookworm 25 yrs ago. 
Other then with puppys I've never had any other cases of worms. 
I do use Frontline plus for fleas and ticks. Also ivermectin as a preventative for heartworm. 
I've never wormed a dog just to be doing it.


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