While your veterinarian is doubtless the best source for everything you need to know about heartworm medicine for dogs, it’s a good idea for every pet owner to stay informed about the essentials of their dog’s health. Heartworms can be deadly for both dogs and cats, and depending on where you live, the majority of viable hosts would contract it without protection. Symptoms of heartworm disease are often not apparent until the later stages, and even then, only those people who pay close attention to their pet’s behaviour may notice.  Your dog will likely develop a cough and become lethargic at which point is may already be too late to treat the dog.  For these reasons, preventative treatments are essential.

Methods of Prevention

Heartworms are relatively

Heartworm disease is not contagious, meaning it can't be passed directly from one animal to another.  Instead, it is spread by mosquitoes.

When a mosquito bites a dog that is infected with heartworm disease, it becomes infected with microfilariae, better known as heartworm larvae.  The larvae mature within the mosquito and are transmitted to another animal when the mosquito bites them. 

Heartworms are most common in dogs, but they can also be found in cats, ferrets, foxes, wolves and very rarely even in people.

Heartworm Life Cycle

Once an animal has been bitten by an infected mosquito, it takes two to three months before the larvae develop into adult worms in the heart and pulmonary vessels.  It then takes another three to four months before the heartworms

Heartworm disease is typically associated with dogs. However, heartworms can also afflict cats and can be just as deadly. Although cats are more resistant to a heartworm infection than dogs, the disease can be more damaging because the blood vessels and heart are smaller in felines. These heartworm prevention tips for cats can help prevent your pet from becoming infected with these parasitic worms.

Causes of Heartworm Disease

Heartworms are transmitted from animals infected with heartworms via mosquitoes. When a mosquito bites an infected animal, it can carry the infection to the next animal it bites. These parasites begin as larvae and grow inside their host. They travel toward the heart and lungs where they multiply, causing devastating effects on the animal's body.

Heartworm disease in cats is a devastating and potentially fatal disease. Transmitted by mosquitoes that carry heartworm larvae from one animal to another, heartworms often are more severe for cats than for dogs. Because a cat’s blood vessels and heart are much smaller than a dog's, the damage caused by these parasitic worms can overwhelm a cat's system. Treating the disease can be dangerous since killing the worms can lead to a fatal reaction in the cat. This is why the best heartworm medicines for cats focus on preventing the infection from occurring in the first place.

Heartworm preventive medications

Whether your cat resides indoors or outdoors, veterinarians recommend that all cats take some type of preventive medication. Before prescribing a heartworm preventive

Heartworms are a common concern when dealing with household pets, especially for dog owners. While several prescription medications are available through your veterinarian to treat and prevent heartworms in dogs and cats, many pet owners prefer a more natural approach. Herbal heartworm remedies are available at a fraction of the cost, and have been suggested as effective alternatives to traditional treatments. Such remedies may be especially recommended for dogs that are too sick or weak to undergo traditional treatment methods.

Why Some Pet Owners Prefer Herbal Heartworm Remedies

Heartworm is a common health concern for pets, and most veterinarians suggest regular heartworm treatments for prevention. However, while traditional veterinary treatments are highly effective, they

Treating heartworm disease in dogs is not only difficult, but it is also dangerous. It is wiser and less costly to prevent heartworms in the first place -- and there are only two ways to do this: Use preventive medication or avoid the mosquitoes that transmit the disease. Since dodging disease-carrying mosquitoes is nearly impossible, veterinarians recommend year-round heartworm prevention. Within the United States, however, heartworm prevention medicine is a "prescription only" drug. Thus, dog owners wanting to forgo the time and expense of a vet appointment often use the Internet to find the best over-the-counter heartworm medicines for dogs.

The Cold, Hard Facts

The hard truth is that no over-the-counter heartworm medicines for dogs are made and distributed in the United States.

Heartworm disease is a potentially fatal disease caused by parasitic worms that invade a dog's body. A mosquito that has bitten an infected animal transmits worm larvae to the new host, usually another dog. The larvae enter the dog's bloodstream and migrate to various parts of the body where they grow into large worms. The most common infection sites are the blood vessels of the dog's the heart and lungs. If you suspect your pet may be infected, you need to know how to test your dog for heartworms before they cause irreversible damage.

Diagnosing heartworm disease in dogs

Even if you do not suspect the disease, you need to know how to test your dog for heartworms before starting a prevention program. If you live in a region prone to populations of mosquitoes, have your