North Bay Animal Hospital
Parasite Control
Parasites such as fleas, ticks, heartworms, roundworms, and hookworms can be detrimental to your pet’s health. Prevention is key and should be taken year-round.
Parasite Monitoring and Control
Puppies and Kittens
As part of your new pet’s initial assessment, we will talk about parasite control. Many puppies and kittens will have acquired external and intestinal parasites from their mother. Your veterinarian will assess your pet for external parasites such as fleas and ear mites. We recommend that you provide us with a fresh fecal sample for analysis of intestinal parasites including roundworms, hookworms, whipworms and coccidia. If any of these parasites are detected then a treatment plan will be prescribed by your veterinarian.
Adults
Even adult pets are at risk of transmitting parasites. Depending on your pet’s habits and lifestyle we can tailor a preventive parasite program. Prevention is always ideal, but if your pet does develop a parasite burden products are available to treat these conditions.
Fleas, ticks and intestinal parasites have always been a risk for our dogs and cats, but in the last few years, we have had a migration of ticks to our area. Not only are ticks a nuisance to our pets, but they have the potential to transmit Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis and anaplasmosis. Ticks love the cool weather and show up once the snow starts to melt and persist until we reach the deep freeze in late November, early December.
As a result of this changing parasite situation, our recommendations for external parasite control now include not only flea and mange protection from June to November but tick prevention starting as early as March 1st and extends into early winter.
Echinococcus multilocularis is a small tapeworm found in North America that we are seeing in Ontario. Unlike more common tapeworms this worm produces many small cysts that spread throughout internal organs and can be transmitted to humans. If your pet spends a lot of time outdoors, preventative treatments should be included in your pet’s annual parasite control plan.
Resources
You can view the forms in PDF format by downloading the free Adobe Acrobat reader.
