What causes heartworms in dogs

If you get a dog, your life will be improved in so many ways due to the time spent loving them (and they will love you back), playing with them or walking the men's best friend. They will love you unconditionally, but we have to return this love and care about our canine friend. Dog has to be happy and healthy and we have to make sure of this. One of the problems a dog may suffer from is heartworms and in the following text we will focus on this problem in order to educate you so you can provide better care for your dog.

Heartworm

Casts and dogs can be struck by this issue, which is actually a parasitic worm that enters the body via mosquitoes and produces a lot of damage. Cats and in some cases humans were attacked by this worm, but dogs are the ones who suffer from this problem in much greater extent. They will house in the lungs, arteries and heart of a dog, and stay there for 6 to 7 months, which is enough time for this parasitic worm to inflict a lot of damage and problems.

Causes

As we have said in the previous lines of the text, mosquitoes are the carriers of the parasitic worm, so the best chances of contracting the issue in question have dogs who spend their time out from the house and in the outdoors. The coat of the dog is the place where the larva is placed after the bite from the infected mosquito. Then the larva stays in the skin and forms into a worm. The size of this parasitic worm can be great and some have even reached the size of a foot. Additional damage will be inflicted by the heartworm created by the parasitic worm already in the skin of a dog since they stick inside the blood vessels and cause even more damage to the lungs and blood circulation. The detection of the problem is difficult due to fact they can stay inside the dog without the owner even knowing it. They can even stay so long that once they are detected, there is nothing that can be done for the dog. But the treatment results will be influenced by several factors, such as the number of heartworms, health of a dog and others. Nervousness, coughing, fainting, short and heavy breathing, sever weight loss, loss of energy and loss of appetite are the most common symptoms of heartworm among dogs. Another problem that these worms can cause is heart failure.