Why Worm Your Pets?
Worms! Arrrgh Worms!
Always remember how important it is to worm your pets – it’s as much for YOUR protection as for your pet!
What are worms?
Worms are parasites that usually inhabit the intestines of your pets.
Round Worm (wikipedia – Joel Mills)
What types of worms are there?
There are 4 main types of worms – Roundworms, Hookworms, Whipworms and Tapeworms. Sounds like a party!
Heartworms are a slightly different beast, and we’ll talk about those in another blog…
How are they picked up?
The main way pets get infected by worms is by picking them up from the poo of infected animals.
Sometimes they can get them by eating uncooked meat, eating fleas, and from their mums (not your mum!)
. 
What signs do they cause?
The biggest problems are in young animals – puppies and kittens. Even small worm burdens can cause them to lose weight, get diarrhoea, lose blood, and make them very sick.
Adult animals can tolerate some worms, but the problem is that they then contaminate the environment. WHICH MEANS THEY CAN INFECT YOU! OR YOUR FAMILY!
What? Animal Worms Infect ME? URGH!
Some of the larvae of animal worms can potentially infect humans – by migrating through their skin! They can even cause blindness!
Some of the Tapeworms (Hydatids) can cause really big problems in humans with infected their abdominal organs!
That’s it! Time to worm the animals!
We recommend using an All-Wormer to clear out all the intestinal worms, including Tapeworms.
In puppies and kittens less than 3 months old – treat every 2 weeks
For 3-6 months – treat every 4 weeks
For Dog and Cat’s older than 6 months old – treat every 3 months.
If you’ve got a pregnant dog or cat, they should be wormed every 2 weeks as well, to stop them passing the worms to the puppies.
Beauty – now what’s the name of what we are using again?…
If you are not sure what your using, or not sure if what you’re using is enough, or if you are using it often enough,give us a call.
Our nurses are trained by the vets to know what your pets need to make sure they and YOU and YOUR FAMILY have the best protection.
My Dog’s rubbing it’s bum on the ground – That’s worms isn’t it?
Ah, no. Not really. Most commonly this is due to problems with your dogs ANAL GLANDS – and that’s a whole other topic, that we need rubber gloves and lube to sort out…
Hope your enjoying our new website and email newsletter formats – let us know if you have any suggestions for topics!
Dr Robbie Anderton