Does a dog need a heart worm test every year?
Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at
4:12 am
Question by I’m Special: Does a dog need a heart worm test every year?
My dog has never missed a month of her medication and now my vet claims she has to be tested every year for heart worm.
Is that necessary?
Best answer:
Answer by olivia:]
go to your vet
What do you think? Answer below!
Tagged with: every • Heart • Need • Test • Worm • Year
Filed under: Dog Worms Symptoms
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I don’t think so, honestly. I haven’t ever been told by a vet to do this and it seems more like a marketing ploy than anything. Your dog is fully medicated and, I’m assuming, showing no symptoms of heartworms, so where is the logic in that?
The preventative should be working. I have heard of -one- instance where a dog got heartworms while on the pill, but that’s very rare. I’d skip the bloodtest, but that’s just me.
Possibly not necessary, but certainly preferred. I for one would like the assurance that my dog is healthy. What would you do if you didn’t get your dog tested for a few years and then found out that the dog was so far advanced that she could not be saved?
It is a simple blood test for peace of mind.
Edit: not to be contrary Myndi, but do you really want YOUR dog to be the one dog who did get Heartworm while on medication? Not a chance I would be willing to take with my dog’s life. I had to watch mine die from the multiple strokes.
Read about heartworm yourself:
http://www.heartwormsociety.org/
Your vet is just like your MD. They want you to come in for an annual check-up and run a test for everything under the sun as well as give you any medication they can convince you that you need. If your dog hasn’t missed a dose, then it shouldn’t have heartworms, if it did then why did you waste your money on the heartgard? It’s not really necessary…its standard procedure. You can refuse it.
They like to do it before you get a refill on the medication. It may not be necessary but I think it’s so they cover their butts because if they do prescribe medication for a dog that they haven’t checked for heart worm and it turns out the dog did have heart worm, the medication could kill the dog. So I think it’s more to double make sure nothing is going to happen.
It depends where you are. In Canada, you could probably do it every two years, but if you’re in an area where it’s very humid for most of the year, then do it yearly. As my vet and boss says, prevention is much easier and cheaper than treatment. In treatment you would have to put your dog under anesthesia to have the worms removed from her heart. As for prevention, it’s only a once a month thing.
I would also recommend Revolution simply because it covers more than just heartworm, but fleas, ticks, intestinal (roundworm, tapeworm) and external parasites (ticks, fleas) as well as ear mites.
I really do not think its mandatory to get your dog checked for heart worm if there showing no symtom’s but you should check with another vet and see if they say the same thing. a website shows taking your dog to the vet when the dog is sick is the most choosen over a yearly checkup
Yes