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This worm can kill your dog

I've seen a lot of advertisements on television lately for heartworm medicines for dogs. This is to be expected, I guess, since we have all been flooded the past few years with ads for prescription drugs for ourselves. Does anyone else find it strange that a company should invest millions of dollars trying to convince people that Drug X might just make their lives worth living again, if they could just beg their physician for a prescription? How many people in their audience even have a medical condition that Drug X is used for? And how many people become convinced that they do because they saw it on TV? What a strange concept- targeting the general public in ads for antidepressants and anti-herpes drugs. 
I'll climb down from my soapbox now, and get back to heartworm medicines in dogs. You may or may not be aware of this rather nasty disease of dogs (and rarely, cats), so let me describe heartworm disease. Dogs contract heartworms from the bite of an infected mosquito. The mosquito injects tiny larvae of the worm into the dog as it feeds. These larvae migrate and develop for about six months, eventually ending up in the right side of the heart and the vessels that go from the heart into the lungs. That doesn't sound so bad, does it? Did I forget to mention that the adult heartworm is nearly ONE FOOT long? NOW it sounds bad! And it really is. These nasty worms do lots of damage to the heart and major blood vessels. The end result: a slow debilitating disease often culminating in death due to heart failure. And here's some more bad news- heartworm is very common in Oklahoma!
But there is good news. First, there is a treatment for dogs with heartworms. The treatment is not cheap, and there are potentially life-threatening complications that can develop. Even better than treatment, we have some very safe and effective preventatives that you can give to your dog. These medications will kill any larval heartworms that a mosquito may inject into your dog. There are several different kinds of heartworm preventatives, from a daily pill to chewable treats or topical treatments that your dog gets once a month. The preventatives are relatively inexpensive, work very well and even kill intestinal worms at the same time.
Most of the ads that I have seen for heartworm preventatives have been for the monthly medications. These are by far the most popular preventatives, and for good reason. There are some differences between them, but all are excellent. If any of you have not gotten around to testing your dogs for heartworms and starting on prevention, I would encourage you to do so, before the mosquitoes come back. Your dog will be glad you did!