# Did you know your puppy has worms?!



## 1605 (May 27, 2009)

The day we picked Cheeney up from the kennel, he was wormed (actually right in front of us). The breeder told us that she had done this basically every 2 weeks until he was 14 weeks old.

Well, at the end of last week there was something I thought was a piece of string in Cheeney's feces. Given what puppies eat, I didn't think anything of it until he started having very bad diarrhea. Then he threw up in the kennel. It wasn't a piece of string in the bile; it was a roundworm.

My first instinct was to get him to the Vet for de-worming. But we found this article online: Dog Worms - Canine Intestinal Worms and Inexpensive Treatment | Beagle Pictures, Information & Forum | Beagles Unlimited. What great information!

Armed with the article, I went to the local feed store & bought Safe-guard liquid and a 12 ml syringe. The de-wormer cost me $20 for 125ml. 

Today was the last day of the 3-day course of de-worming: we gave Cheeney 6ml per treatment & Zio (even though he is asymptomatic) 12 mls, per the instructions in the article & on the medication. There is enough in that container for several months of treatment.

Meanwhile, we know it's working because: 

(1) Last night he threw up a batch of what I can only describe as something out of a SF movie (grosses me out just typing about it!)
(2) He ate a full meal today of 1/2 reg food & 1/2 rice + chicken mix (the prior 2 days was chicken & rice only) with no problems.

We will be putting him on a monthly worming regimen until he's 6 months old, then bi-monthly after that. Of course there's also heartworm to have to worry about down here all year 'round so we'll have to space the monthly treatments a few weeks apart for each medication.

Anyways, I thought I'd share the Safe-Guard info with everyone. It's good to know you don't have to go to the vet & spend a fortune for the same medication.

Pax,


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## RawFedDogs (Jun 16, 2008)

I would be very wary of routinely worming my dogs every two months when there are no worms. I got Thor at 12 weeks and he hasn't been wormed since. He's now 6 1/2 years old. Remember you are putting poison in your dog everytime you worm him. It's bound to have a negative effect over time. I don't have a problem worming where there are actually worms.


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## chowder (Sep 7, 2008)

RawFedDogs said:


> I would be very wary of routinely worming my dogs every two months when there are no worms. I got Thor at 12 weeks and he hasn't been wormed since. He's now 6 1/2 years old. Remember you are putting poison in your dog everytime you worm him. It's bound to have a negative effect over time. I don't have a problem worming where there are actually worms.


The one vet I went to tried to convince me that the CDC insists that all dogs need to be wormed routinely every 6 months. I let her worm Chelsy since she hadn't been wormed in over 10 years and she talked me into in since I had a new puppy in the house. Chelsy ended up horrible sick for several days. It is definitely NOT something I am going to do twice yearly when I don't see any evidence of worms, especially once they are past puppyhood.


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## CorgiPaws (Mar 31, 2009)

Worms are never fun to deal with. 
I will say that if you're planning on doing heartworm prevention meds, Heartguard Plus also covers roundworm and hookworm, so doing that PLUS regular deworming would be some serious overkill on the worm control front! I do heartguard with my pack bimonthly through the warm months of the year (3 doses/ year) and haven't had worm issues at all. Just about all puppies contract worms as babies, and will need a couple rounds of a dewormer to get past it, but worms are USUALLY not an ongoing issue for an otherwise healthy dog.


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