How to Deal With Tapeworms in Dogs
Tapeworms can be considered one of the most common parasites to infect dogs. They may be disgusting and easily transferred but fortunately, they are also easily treated. Do not panic when your dog catches tapeworms. What you need to do in such cases is go to the vet. Your vet will be the one to give you all the advice that you need in order to get through this dilemma. But before you get to that part, it would help a lot if you are well educated with important information about such canine parasites. Here are the important details that you need to know about canine tapeworms:
Definition of tapeworms:
Tapeworms are parasites found in animal’s intestines. They are flat segmented worms that have necks and heads. The head part is the one that attaches to the animal’s intestines. A tapeworm has segments that are formed continuously on the neck of the worm, each having its own reproductive organs. As the segments with eggs grow longer continuously, the older segments at the end of the worm detaches. Eventually, this detached segments exit through the dog’s anal passage. These eliminated segments will then be the parasite to new hosts. This is how quickly tapeworms reproduce and gets transferred.
Common causes:
The usual origins of tapeworms are fleas. It all begins when fleas consume feces with tapeworm eggs, thus these eggs are then transferred inside the fleas. So as fleas go to dogs’ skins, tendencies will be that the dogs will chew, lick or bite itchy skin areas, thus swallowing the fleas. These fleas will then be broken inside the dog’s intestine, spreading the hatched tapeworm eggs. Then, the cycle goes on and on over again.
Generally, dogs can be infected with tapeworms when they eat or swallow any animal or animal body part that is infected by tapeworms.
Symptoms:
Your dog might be infected by tapeworms if you see him scratching or suffering from itch in the anal area because of irritation caused by tapeworms. Also, if your dog has tapeworms, you will see moving worms or segments in his feces. Physical evidence of your dog’s infection also includes dried segments of tapeworms surrounding his anal area.
If any of these symptoms occur, have your dog checked up by a vet to confirm the infection.
Treatment:
Tapeworms can be easily treated. Oral and injected drugs will dissolve intestinal worms effectively. But these drugs can be full of chemicals that can be harmful to your dog if given excessively. So remember to not rely too much on medicines; instead of giving drugs to your dog every time he gets infected by tapeworms, you should as well do your part in cleaning your surroundings and maintaining the cleanliness. In this case, both cure and prevention play important roles in ensuring your dog’s good health condition. Remember that no matter how effective worm medicines are, when your dog continuously gets re-infected by worms due to untidy surroundings, it still would not make any sense. Yes, the medicines are almost 100% effective in eliminating tapeworms and hardly cause any adverse effects, but it is not advisable to rely on this so much. So remember, aside from canine dewormers, regular canine check up and regular cleaning also play big parts in keeping your dog uninfected.
So the bottom line in dealing with canine tapeworms is this: keep your area clean to avoid fleas, thus avoiding tapeworms; or, when your dog catches tapeworms, you take him to a vet to get a drug prescription, give your dog the drug he needs, and then go ahead and clean your surroundings to make sure that your dog would not get infected by tapeworms again.
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