Worms and your Pet

What types of worms do dogs and cats get?

Roundworm, Tapeworm, Lungworm, Whipworm and Hookworm. All of these worms can affect your pet and are a potential hazard to your family’s health. Statistics show that 60% of all cats in the UK have worms at any one time. An emerging and potentially serious threat is a lungworm called Angiostrongylus. The risk varies significantly in different parts of the country.

What are the symptoms of worms in cats and dogs?

In some cases, your pet will show no symptoms but may be passing roundworm eggs when passing faeces. Infected faeces pose a risk to humans, especially children and on rare occasions, this can have serious consequences such as causing blindness. The presence of worms may weaken your pets’ immune system making it more susceptible to infections.

Cats – Mild infestations provide little or no symptoms in a healthy cat; a more severe infestation can cause vomiting, with diarrhoea or constipation, leading to loss of weight.

Dogs – Light infestations may go unnoticed in a healthy dog. With a heavy infestation, however, your dog may suffer vomiting, diarrhoea or constipation, leading to loss of weight and condition. The migrating larvae of some worms can even cause lung damage, with consequent breathing problems.

Lungworm can cause potentially fatal bleeding issues and severe respiratory signs.

Routes of infection:

1. Ingestion of worm eggs from the soil.
2. Ingestion of worm larvae developing in a host animal, e.g. mouse, bird, rabbit, etc.
3. Ingestion of infected fleas.
4. Primary infection via infected mother’s milk.
5. Angiostrongylus is spread when dogs eat slugs or snails or potentially even drink from water where they have been, e.g. plant trays and pots.

Pregnant cats (queens)

These should be wormed around the time of giving birth to prevent the transfer of worms via milk. There is no trans-placental transmission in cats, unlike dogs.

Pregnant dogs (bitches)

These should be wormed daily from day 40 of pregnancy until 2 days after whelping to prevent transfer via the placenta or via milk.

What treatments are available for worms?

1) Granules (Roundworm and some Tapeworm) – Tasteless granules which can be mixed in with your cat’s or dog’s food.

2) Tablets (Roundworm and Tapeworm) – To mix with your cat food/dog food or given directly by mouth. Please ask a veterinary nurse to do this free of charge if you find giving tablets difficult.

3) Spot on (Roundworm and Tapeworm) – Some preparations also treat hookworm and whipworm. Some of the flea preparations used on the back of the neck also treat roundworm. There is also a spot on preparation that has been developed especially to treat tapeworm in difficult cats.

We require your pet’s weight to calculate an accurate dosage of wormer.

Remember worm treatments do not have a preventative action – they only eliminate the worms present at the time of treatment. Regular dosing is necessary to keep your pet healthy, worm free and prevent them from contaminating the environment with eggs.

Recommended products for treating worms

The main wormer we use is Milbemax. Please always feel free to discuss your pet’s specific requirements. For example, if you are concerned about the lungworm Angiostrongylus, you may want to consider Advocate which is a monthly spot-on product for fleas and other worms, including roundworm and lungworm, but not tapeworm.

Please ask any of our team for advice on worm and flea prevention and products best suited to your situation.