Breaking the Cycle of Worms in Dogs
Although they do not usually pose serious problems, worms in dogs always seem to be an issue, especially for puppies. This is because of how their life cycle works. Given that worms in dogs can cause health problems in both dogs and humans, owners have a responsibility to interrupt the cycle and try to keep it broken.
The roundworm is the most common type of dog worm we see in the UK because most puppies are born infected. This infestation often causes puppies’ abdomens to become distended and may delay their growth whilst in humans it has the potential to cause blindness.
As is the case with all types of worms in dogs, understanding the lifecycle will allow it to be broken. At first, a female puppy is infected in the womb or through her mother’s milk. In the infected puppy, some of the worm larvae will move out of the intestine and into the blood before forming indestructible cysts in the muscles. Later in life, during pregnancy, the larvae awaken and move back through the bloodstream to infest any unborn puppies.
In young puppies, some of the larvae will not form the above mentioned cysts. Instead they will mature to adulthood in the intestine. Once mature, after feeding on the partly digested food in the intestine, the adult worm releases eggs which are passed from the dog with the faeces. Once in the environment, the eggs become a risk to other dogs and people. For people it is the touching of contaminated soil rather than the handling of puppies which poses an infection risk.
That is the cycle and in order to interrupt it, dog owners should give worming treatment to adult dogs every three months. Because of puppies’ predisposition to this type of worms in dogs, they should be treated every two weeks between the ages of two and twelve weeks and once a month thereafter until they are six months old. Dog owners must take responsibility for picking up after their dog and making sure their family practices good hand hygiene in order to reduce the risk of worms in dogs for other dogs and other people.
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