Straight To The Heart: Heartworm Disease And Your Pet
At BEEVET Animal Hospital, we want to arm you with the information you need to ensure that your pets are healthy and happy throughout the year. Heartworm disease is a serious illness that affects both indoor and outdoor pets. Without the proper prevention, even animals who spend a majority of their time inside are susceptible to this health issue.
Knowing more about heartworm disease, what causes it, and how to prevent it is your best defense against this common, yet preventable health problem.
Continue…Keeping Your Pet (and Family) Healthy With Flea and Tick Control
Although many owners turn their attention to flea, tick, and other pest prevention once the temps start to rise, parasites thrive throughout the year, especially in temperate climates such as Austin’s. Like heartworm prevention, flea and tick control is necessary to keep your pet healthy and to prevent people in your home from contracting zoonotic illnesses.
Flea and Tick Risks
If you’ve ever had a flea infestation in the home or have been hiking in a wooded area where ticks thrive, you likely know that parasites can be problematic. However, besides the hassle of infestation, these pests carry many diseases that can harm both pets and people.
The Heart Of The Matter: The Importance Of Heartworm Prevention
By now, most of us are aware of the potential for disease that can occur from a mosquito bite. Mosquitos can transmit a host of dangerous infections to humans, and most of us do what we can to prevent ourselves from being bitten and heartworm prevention.
Even our pets are not immune to the dangers of mosquito-borne disease, but unlike us, they can’t stop themselves from being bitten. Because dangerous illnesses such as heartworm disease are transmitted via mosquito and affects dogs and cats in all 50 states, we pet owners need to take matters into our own hands when it comes to protecting our pets.
What Is Heartworm Disease?
This extremely serious, and sometimes fatal, mosquito borne illness is as scary as it sounds. Once an infected mosquito has bitten a pet, tiny worms called microfilariae, enter the bloodstream. Over a period of months to years, the worms invade the heart, lungs, and related blood vessels of an infected animal, and can grow up to a foot in length. Continue…
