When April showers start, not only do we get the flowers but the mosquitos as well. These are an airline of blood borne parasites that cause heartworm disease, a deadly illness in dogs and cats.

Treatment is much better than cure, and cheaper! You could have your dog or cat injected every six months in the fight against this disease, or you could give them a pill once a month.

The adult worms can reach over 1 foot in length. Mosquitos pick up immature worms when they bite an animal infected with heartworm, by the mosquito then going on to bite another animal, the heartworm is spread. Its in April, or the spring when your dog or cat is at most risk of becoming infected with heartworm. The small immature worms only needs a few weeks to incubate inside the mosquito but can only do this when the weather is nice, therefore the nicer the weather the more at danger of infection your dog and cats become. Heartworm, as the name implies, sets itself up near the heart. The adult worm will sit mainly in the pulmonary artery (the blood vessel that carries blood from the heart to the lungs). The result of untreated heartworm infections is death due to heart failure.

Animals with heartworm infection may cough and have some difficutly in breathing, fatigue and fainting are other signs to watch out for as the infection progressess, but you must remember sometime the signs do not develop for several years after infection. If your dog or cat is diagnosed with heartworm, the treatment is then aimed at killing the adult worm. This is usually accomplished by administering a form of arsenic in a dose that is deadly to the worms but obviously not to the dog. The medication itself is not dangerous to the dog, but treatment becomes more dangerous depending upon the number of adult worms that are present. If large numbers of worms are killed at any one time, then destruction of the dogs arteries may occur, along with some lung damage.

Cats are not as susceptible to heartworm as dogs, but can still become infected. The number of adult heartworms in cats tends to be much lower than in dogs. Cats can also mask their disease better than dogs, signs may literally be non-existent. Heartworm therefore in cats can be worse than in dogs, just because they show little or no signs and within a couple of years will die suddenly.