HoundBlog

Dowload this great PDF file that illustrates how to give CPR to dogs!

Dog CPR

One of the primary causes of skinny dogs and dogs who won’t eat is parasites. Whipworms, tapeworms and hookworms are very difficult to erradicate completely because of the life cycle of the worm. Paraciticides only kill adult worms and not the eggs or larvae. Fecal floats often miss hooks and whips because they are so small and, again, they only see the adult worms, so if you’ve just given your monthly heartworm preventative, you’ve killed that crop off, but the larvae and eggs are still in the dog’s body ready to hatch/morph into more. While most heartworm preventives have residual effect on heartworms, it’s not been proven to have the same on hookworms and whipworms and of course, does not work at all on tapeworms — those require a completely different treatment.

What I’ve started doing and what is WORKING for me is, when I first get a dog in for rescue, I deworm him/her with Safeguard, then repeat in 2 week increments for 2-3 months (depending upon how debilitated he/she was). If the dog is very thin as you are describing yours to be, I then put him/her on an every 3 months routine of Safeguard in addition to the heartworm preventive once the initial every two weeks routine is complete. Again, tapeworms require a completely different treatment — Safeguard doesn’t work on them, but I don’t find them to cause the weight loss and appetite loss that whips and hooks do.

There are no picky eaters here at all, although some started out that way. I feed a quality kibble with water and a dab of canned food added in as an enhancer and they get cookies daily and they get to pre-wash dishes every night — that’s the sum total of “people food” they get. 

Hookworms and Whipworms are impossible to remove from the environment, so your dog keeps on re-infesting himself with them every time he walks through the yard and then licks his feet. That’s why the repeat treatment is so important. Don’t give the Safeguard the same day (or week) that you give heartworm prevention. It’s best to give it 2 weeks after you’ve given heartworm preventive.

These deworming schedules have been run by both my own vet and another vet and they both say there should be no issues following it.

Have spent half the day trying to set up this blog page to suit my future theme for this website. It is not going as planned — colors are not updating, images are not pulling in. The so-called “tutorial” is useless without sound which seems to have gone south.

 Do I sound a bit bitter???? Well, only a little bit. At least the title is right.

 As Scarlett said “Tomorrow’s another day.”

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