Your Pet Has Worms? Here's What to Do!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Sugerman (00:01):
Hi, everybody.
Welcome back to another episodeof Vetsplanation.
I have Dr.
Z here with me again today.
I'm so excited.
We're going to be talking aboutone of your favorite topics.
All right.
So let's get into it.

Dr. Xenia Zawadzkas (00:14):
Okay.
First of all, there's so manytypes of worms in the world.
I was researching before talkingto you and the good old Google
told me there's about 325quintillion worms in the world.
I was like how much isquintillion and that's 10 to the
18, yeah, 18 zeros.
So a lot of worms and like ofall the organisms in the world,

(00:35):
like one out of four are a worm.
If that helps put it inperspective.
So there's tons of worms, butluckily only a very tiny portion
of these is our parasitic worms.
Like a lot of them are just freeliving worms that don't bother
us.

Okay, that's good.

Yeah.
But the best guesses are about300,000 or so are parasitic.
Yeah.

Still a lot.

There's quite a few, yeah.

So today we're going to define what a parasite
is, how it affects the host, andthen discuss the different types
of parasitic worms that commonlyinfect our pets.
From roundworms to hookworms,whipworms to tapeworms, we got a
lot to cover.
So buckle up and get ready tolearn everything you need to
know about keeping your furryfriends healthy and worm free.

(01:21):
By the way, don't forget to likeand subscribe now.
You guys are the ones that helpus be able to help more pets.
The more likes we get, the moresubscribes we get, the more we
get this information out to morepet parents.
Alright, so listen in.

Um, To define a parasite though, just
remember, that's an organismthat lives on or in another
species called the host.
And they derive their nutrients.
They have to eat them at thehost's expense.
So it's not like the host isbenefiting from them at all.
And obligate parasites are theones that can't survive or
complete their life cycle at allwithout the host.

(01:58):
So they have to have the host tolive.
There are also facultativeparasites.
And they can live with orwithout a host.
It doesn't matter to them.
Examples of those, I was tryingto think of one on my own, but I
couldn't find one, but it'sactually like fungus.
There's like yeast in the dog'sears.
They're parasitic in there, butthey don't have to be in the air
and they can live and eatsomething else.

(02:18):
It doesn't matter to them.
And there's some weird amoebatoo, that like supposedly can
infect people and cause braindamage, scary stuff.
But I'm not talking about those.
I'm talking about worms, yeah.
So there are other parasitesthat I've already talked about,
like that are on the outside,like fleas and ticks and
mosquitoes.
Yeah, bedbugs and all kinds offun parasites.

(02:40):
But today let's just talk aboutthe worms.

Perfect.
What are the most common wormsthat we see in dogs and cats?

That are parasitic?
Yeah.
We have let's see, one, two,three, four big worms.
And then there's a couple otherlike single celled organisms
that we'll talk about next time.
So just focusing on the worms,we have roundworms, hookworms,
whipworms, and tapeworms.
Those are some of the big onesthat we actually look for on a
fecal analysis when we'rerunning fecals on puppies or

(03:09):
even adult dogs.
We're always looking for thosetypes of worms.
The other ones that are on thefecal test are Giardia and
Coccidia.
And then sometimes we're lookingfor flukes as well.
So I thought I'd save thosethree for another time.
Yeah, so those are the big ones.

What are the different worms we find most
common in dogs and cats then?

Yeah, so there are different worms.
Let's see, some can infect bothdogs and cats, but other ones
are species specific and onlyinfect cats or only infect dogs.
And then there's differentstrains of the same kind of
parasite that only go into dogsand cats.
And I'll go into all of that.

Okay.
I know many people tell me thatthey aren't seeing any worms in
their dogs and cats.
When they do see those worms canyou tell the difference between
those?

Yeah, just by looking at them.

Just by looking at them.

Yeah the short answer is yes, you can
tell what they are by looking atthem.
They have different anatomicalfeatures, but there's a big myth
about worms in a dog's poop thatI think we need to bust that
myth right now.
So basically dogs when they haveworms or cats when they have
worms they're living happily upinside of them, and they're not
gonna just come out occasionallyin the poop.

(04:15):
And so if an owner says oh, Idon't need to run a fecal his
poops look great I don't seeworms in this poop.
That doesn't necessarily meanthat he doesn't have worms.
What we're actually testing foron our fecal analyses are
microscopic eggs, and they arelaying those in different
amounts.
But that's what we're lookingfor and you need a microscope to
do that.

Right.
Do they always lay those eggs?
Do you see it in every stoolsample?

It depends if they have the worm or not,
right?

Let's say they do have the worm.
Will you see it in every fecalsample still?

Some of them, yes.
But some of them, no.
We'll go over that, becausethey're all a little bit
different.
Some of them lay eggscontinuously, and some of them
only lay them occasionally andother ones don't really release
them into the poop at all, liketapeworms.
We'll go into that, but, but ifan owner does actually see live
worms, like they're walking outin their yard and they're
picking up their dog's poop andthey see worms like wiggling

(05:06):
around in their dog's poop, thatthat probably doesn't mean those
were parasites.
Those are probably free livingworms that went into the poop
after the dog pooped.

Yeah.

So like flies, for example, big one,
they have maggots, right?
And they love poop and they laytheir eggs on the poop.
And within days, usually they'rehatching and they're wiggling
around and disgusting.
And so if you don't pick thepoop up right away, that might
be why there's some worms inthere.

I also commonly have people bring in the poop
with the worm and it ends upbeing like literally a
groundworm.

Yeah.
Just one of those quintillionworms that live in the world
without being parasitic.
Yeah.
So there's a lot of them outthere.
There is an exception likeroundworms in particular, if the
puppy has a ton of them or akitten has a ton of them, they
can actually burp those up andvomit out adult worms sometimes
if they have a ton of them, justbecause there's so many there.

So they're just living in their stomach at that
point.

Yeah.
Like throughout their wholeintestines and then they get up
in their stomach and then thecat just pukes it up.
So that you can't actually see acat or a dog have a worm come
out, but usually it's the frontend.
But most of the time, yeah, the,the microscopic worm eggs are
tiny, you can't see them.
And then over many, many weeks,sometimes months.

(06:16):
They're slowly developing andthen hatching out sometimes,
depending on which kind.
And so maybe you can see themeventually, but it's like a
month later after the poop hasbeen on the ground and then the
poop's like long gone by then.
And it's like a worm in the dirtbasically.
And they're tiny, even then someof them are still microscopic.
So yeah, you can't really tellif your dog has worms by looking

(06:38):
at their poop.

Got it.

To make a long story short.

Perfect.
Okay.
I know a lot of times we willask to send a fecal out to the
lab rather than just doing it inhouse.
Why is that?

Good, we can do either.
We can check in house, but it'snot as sensitive as sending it
out to the lab.
The labs that we send the poopout to have trained staff who
are really looking for theseworms eggs and they have the
facilities and the time to spinit properly.
You have to do like a sugarcentrifugation.
I remember doing it in vetschool.
Did you do it?

I did have to do that.

And then like the sugar just got
everywhere.

It was so sticky.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it takes a long time too, like you
have to spin it and mix it inthe sugar, and then you let it
sit for so long, and then youhave to take the side out and
look at it.
And it takes a long time just todo one fecal properly.
So it's a lot easier and a lotmore sensitive just to send it
out unless we're really tryingto figure out if they have
giardia or something.
Sometimes you can see thatpretty quickly.
But a lot of times you miss it.
If you look at it in house.

And some of the ones that they do, when we send
them out to the lab, is actuallylooking for the DNA of the worm,
too.

Yes.
Yeah, I didn't even talk aboutthat.
But yeah, we can not here, butat the lab, they can do PCR
testing on the poop and actuallysee, like we do PCR testing on
all the tick borne diseases andeverything.
They can actually look forroundworm antigen and hookworm
antigen and all of those.
And they're getting a lot morespecific now and more sensitive.

Yeah, very cool.

Mm hmm.
Yeah.
So I like to send the poop out.
Tells me I'm a little morecertain about the results when
we send it out.

Yeah, there are definitely times when I've
looked at the microscope and I'mlike, I'm not 100 percent sure.

Yeah, or you're like, what is this?
Is this a worm egg?

Exactly, yeah.

Or maybe it's a piece of pollen.
A lot of times I remember in vetschool, they're like, no, that's
just plant pollen.

Yeah, exactly.

I was disappointed.
I thought it was a worm egg.

I will say that plant pollen is really cool
because it looks like MickeyMouse.
Like a hidden Mickey is what Ialways call it.
Yeah, for anybody who's fromAnaheim.
All right let's get into some ofthese worms.
So I wanted to know like, whatdoes a roundworm look like?

Yes.
Let's start with roundworms.
Roundworms, the adults, they canbe anywhere from about two
inches to eight inches long.
The females are the bigger ones.
They are round and smooth andtubular like spaghetti.
Really, it's a really goodanalogy.
They look a lot like spaghetti.

Sorry.
Hopefully nobody's eating.

I know.
They can be anywhere from likecream colored to brownish yellow
to pinkish.
Like the cat one is a littlepinkish.
It's super nasty.
Oh, and I meant to say also whenwe actually deworm puppies and
they poop out the worms, that'swhen you'll see them in the
poop, right?
After they die, then they comeout.
The dewormer for roundworms justsedates them a little bit, just

(09:12):
anesthetizes them, so they kindof like let go of the, of the
intestine, but they're stillalive.
And then they poop them out,because they let go.
And then when they come out,they're still like moving a
little bit.

Oh my gosh, I didn't even know that.

Yeah, so sometimes they're still alive.
Super gross.
But it's interesting that theywill then die because once
they're out of the intestine,they'll die eventually because
of exposure.
But it's interesting also thatthese guys are not infectious.
Like you could actually eatthose and be okay.
If a dog were to eat it again,like you wouldn't get more.
Yeah, it would just pass onthrough

Or the next dog.
I think that's the most commonthing.
The other dog eats the stool,right?

Yeah, that's super common.
Poop eating is a big thing yeah.
So he'd be like, Oh, spaghettipoop.
And it would be okay.
Don't worry.
They can do it.

So tell me more about roundworms.
So what about their life cycle?
Why is that really important?

Oh yes, so of course we have to talk about
the life cycles.
We're going to talk about all ofthem.

Okay, perfect.

And if we know the life cycle, we know the
enemy, and then it gives us thepower to know how best to fight
them, right?
If we know where they go andwhat they do.
If we understand that, then allof this deworming and
preventatives that we're toutingall the time will make more
sense.
You'll understand why we say youhave to deworm this many times.
It's because of the life cycle.

(10:26):
Let's go into it.
Okay.
First of all, the names of theseroundworms, there's a couple
different ones.
And I want to touch on them alla little bit because they're all
very different.
The one that dogs most often getis the Toxocara canis.
They cannot infect cats, butthey can get into humans.
And then there's a cat onecalled Toxocara cati.

(10:48):
And they're a little lesscommon, they only go in cats,
but they also can go intohumans.
And I won't go into that in toomuch detail, because that's like
a whole other thing about humanmedicine.

Yeah.

But it's a very severe disease in humans a
roundworm infection.
It's called cutaneous live larvamigrans or visceral larva
migrans, where the immatureworms start to migrate through
the human body and they can getinto just the skin if you're
lucky.
And that's not so bad, but thensometimes they get inside your
body and go into your, anyabdominal organ, or they can get

(11:21):
into the eyes too.
And you can go blind.
It's super nasty.
It's more of a problem in likethird world countries where
they, they don't deworm the petsand the kids are running around
barefoot all the time.
And so that's where you seethose kind of horrible parasitic
diseases.
So another big reason why thecompanion animal parasite
council recommends deworming allthe time.

(11:43):
So that we can avoid thisproblem in the United States
anyway.
Yeah.
And we, for the most part, do.

Yeah.
I would like to avoid that.

Yeah.
It does make me want to tell mykids not to run around barefoot
so much.
But we also don't have a ton ofdogs running around that are
probably not on parasiteprevention.
So I think our exposure to ourkids is pretty rare here, but it
is a big problem in other placesand worth noting.
There is another type ofroundworm called Toxascaris
leonina, which is also prettycommonly found.

(12:14):
It's another roundworm, but it'smuch simpler than the Toxocara
canis or cati.
It doesn't do any of themigrating.
It's a much easier parasite toget rid of, and that one's not a
big deal.
And then the last one that Iwant to touch on, there's tons
of types of roundworms, but thelast big one is called
Baylisascaris procyonis.

(12:34):
This one is in raccoons, and wesee raccoons everywhere.
And this one is especially badif people get it, because this
one will go straight to thebrain, and make you die
basically.
So never touch raccoon poop.
They like to poop in they callit a latrine.
It's super gross but they'll allkind of poop in one area.
And sometimes dogs will get intothat and then eat the poop there

(12:57):
and then they get theBaylisascaris.
And sometimes we'll see it on afecal and it's a big surprise
and we're like, Oh my God, washyour hands, let's deworm, let's
deworm.
Because it's just such a hugezoonotic risk for people.

And it's really hard to distinguish between a
lot of those, like there's suchtiny differences between them
all just as another reason whywe send them out, right?

Yeah, so on the microscope the eggs are all
slightly different and that'susually how you diagnose which
type it is based on what theworm eggs look like.
The adults look a littledifferent too, but, but yeah,
the lab will tell you what kindof roundworm it is.
Okay, but let's just focus nowon the dog and cat ones that we
see more often.
So Toxocara canis, let's startwith the eggs, right?

(13:36):
The eggs are microscopic,they're pooped out, they're in
the environment.
And then it takes about 10 daysat the least, but usually more
like 3-4 weeks for those littleeggs to develop the larvae
inside of it basically becomeslike an embryo, or like a little
infective larva.
But it takes weeks and weeks forthat to happen.
So if you were to eat freshpoop, those worm eggs wouldn't

(13:57):
do anything, right?
But if a dog eats like an oldpoop, there's probably, there
could be positive, or, infectivelarva in that poop.
And these eggs, by the way, arevery hardy.
They stay in the environment.
They're not, sunlight doesn'tkill them, freezing doesn't kill
them, they just stay aroundbasically forever, for years,
they'll be in the dirt.

So the, so adults, they're not hardy, eggs are.

Correct.
Absolutely.
Yep, just like I talked about,if you poop out dead adult
worms, those don't go anywhere,they're done.
But if you poop out eggs, thosewill eventually become infective
after a month or so and thenthey stay forever until they're
picked up again.
And so then these are ingestedusually by what we call fecal
oral transmission.
So dogs will run through poop,old poop, lick their paws, lick

(14:44):
the dirt off themselves.
Cats as well.
Very fastidious.
They like to groom themselves.
So usually ingest the eggs thatare infective.
And then the craziness happens.
This is particularly bad for theroundworms, they like to migrate
once they get inside as thatinfective larva.
And they, it seems like theydon't really know where they're
going, honestly.

(15:07):
Sometimes they'll go where theymean to go.
I think they want to end up inthe lungs.
Cause if they get to the lungs,then the dog or the cat coughs
them up and then swallows thatdown.

Mhmm.
Yeah.
And cough up a little phlegm.

Exactly.
We do it too.
But anyway, that's how they getthen back into the gut, cause
they went from the lungs intothe gut by the cough swallow
mechanism.
And then they can grow up fromthere and keep going.
But I want to mention the otherplaces they can go before,
besides the lungs, they also goto the liver.
And sometimes they just insistin there and stay there for a

(15:43):
long time.
And they can go to the muscle.
In the females, they love to goto the mammary glands, and to
the uterus, straight into thefetuses of the puppies that are
about to be born.
And then inside the fetus,they'll make their way into the
gut.
They just keep moving.
They just migrate like crazy.
And then they can also get intothe central nervous system and

(16:04):
the brain.
And that's usually though, inthe, the host that they didn't
mean to get into like humansthey'll like to go crazy places
and, they're like, this isn't adog.
Where do I go?
Where do I go?
And then they're like, Oh, let'sgo to the brain.
This is nice.
So they go everywhere, hopefullythey get to the lungs at some
point, are coughed andswallowed, and then they can get
back into the gut once they get,they have to go out of the gut

(16:26):
and then back into the gut.
That's like what they want to dofor some reason.
And then they do some stages ofmaturing along the way.
Once they're back in the gut,though, after all of that, then
they finally become adultsagain, and they mate, and they
start to lay eggs, and thenthose are released into the
environment and we start allover again.
So that's the roundworm lifecycle.

(16:47):
Super fun.

Yeah.
What are some of the signs thenthat a dog or cat might have
roundworms?

Yeah, so puppies, the big ones are
vomiting and diarrhea right withor without worms like that you
can see.
And if they have a really highworm burden and they start
getting into the lungs becausethey're migrating there they'll
start coughing.
You'll notice a cough in apuppy.
And if it's really bad, they canget pneumonia.
So like really young puppieswith pneumonia might actually be

(17:12):
bits of round worms in theirlungs, getting infected.

Good to know, we just have to deworm them.
Yes.

Yeah.
Always deworm the puppies, mightjust be a roundworm in their
lungs.
Most of the time, though, thepuppies are very unthrifty.
We call them like they have arough hair coat.
The worms are stealing theirnutrition, right?
They absorb the food in thestomach that the puppy's eating
and they steal it from them.
So they are malnourished orskinny, but yet they have a

(17:40):
really big pot belly becausethey're don't have a lot of
muscle and there's a lot ofworms in their intestines and it
can actually push their belliesout.
So they have these big bellies.
Oh, really sad in some of thepuppies that have big
infestations, they can cause anobstruction, like they can form
a ball and then they can't movefood through at all if they ate
a baseball or something, theygot an obstruction.

(18:00):
And sometimes little puppies aremore susceptible to
intussusception as well.
Like, when they have some ofthat happening, the gut's still
trying to move around it, andone piece of the gut can go into
the other, like a glove.
Or a sock.

That's definitely the most common thing I've seen
when they've been in for anemergency, a worm, like real
worm emergency has been intointussusceptions.

And I think sometimes that happens after
they're dewormed because some ofthem will die and then they stop
moving and get stuck in a walland then the intussusception can
happen.
So it can be really bad whenthey have a high worm burden and
hard to treat them and then theymight need surgery to get the
intussusception out of there.
So that's bad.
With kittens, it's not quite asbad.

(18:40):
We don't see as many of thoseproblems, but vomiting, diarrhea
for sure.
Just less of all the otherstuff.

Okay.
Moving on, how about hookworms?

Okay.
Number two, hookworms.

So what do they look like?

Yes.
So they are much smaller.
They're much shorter.
They're short and thick.
They are white to reddish brown,and they have a little hook on
the end.
That's the name hookworms.
I think they're, they're aboutlike one to two centimeters
long.
So they're pretty small, maybean inch.

Definitely compared to the roundworms.

Yeah, so much, much smaller than the
roundworms.
Roundworms are like bigspaghetti.
These guys are like littlethreads.
I think I read somewhere thatthere can, just think of them as
small, thin strings.
They also, and there's a goodpicture, an electron microscope
picture of this one.
They have these sharp, nastyteeth.
There's six of them, apparently.
In the picture, it only lookslike there's two, but, but

(19:31):
there's six of them.
And some of the other types ofhookworms have plates, like
they're called cutting platesinstead.
And these worms are big on bloodsucking, like more than all the
other ones.
They just want blood.
They don't care what's going onin the gut.

Vampire worms.

Exactly.
Yep.
And they have sharp teeth andthey cut, cut, and they drink,
drink blood.
Yeah.
There's a few different names ofthose.
The big ones we see in dogs andcats are Ancylostoma caninum.
Caninum is the dog one.
There's a braziliense, which iscats and dogs.
And then there's a less scary,less pathogenic one called

(20:06):
Uncinaria stenocephala.
So those are the three maintypes that we'll see in dogs and
cats.

What about the life cycle of the hookworms
then?

Yeah, let's do the life cycle.

All right.

All right.
So let's start with the eggsagain.
Again, they're microscopic.
They're out in the environmentfrom a dog or cat pooping them
out.
And they also take, just likeroundworms, two to four weeks
for the second and third stagelarvas to develop inside of that
egg.
So they're still microscopic.
They're slowly like maturing outin the wild.

(20:39):
Out in the dirt.
The eggs are also very hardyjust like roundworms, months to
years, they just stay out there.
And then they are ingested bylicking or the other cool thing
about these guys, I don't knowif it's cool, but scary, they
actually instead of looking likean egg after a while, they do
hatch out a little worm, like atiny larva, and they, they can

(21:01):
burrow into the skin.
So unlike, unlike theroundworms, where you have to
just ingest the eggs, these onescan, you can still ingest the
eggs, that's fine, but they alsohatch out and are in the dirt,
and then if you're touching itwith bare skin, they can get
under your skin and burrow inthere.
So they'll just go right underthe skin.
Again, it's a cutaneous larvamigrans.

(21:22):
They call it in people.
And you get really itchy feet.
Or wherever it's touching.
There was one picture I saw ofthis guy's whole belly.
Just had them all over.
He must have been lying like onhis belly.
Where they were.
But they can get into dogs andcats that way too, just on their
belly, wherever they're layingdown.
They can just get under the skinand enter that way.
They can also get into rodents,or birds, or insects.

(21:46):
Like cockroaches is a big one.
They just burrow into them or,or the, the cockroach can eat
it.
Eat the worm.
And they mention cockroaches alot because I guess there's
places where cockroaches are badcats will play with the
cockroach and eat it.
And then they can get hookwormthat way.
Yeah.
Okay.
So they're a little differentfrom roundworms in that they can
do that.
But luckily in people, theydon't go anywhere else.

(22:08):
They just stay in the skin.
So it's not as bad as theroundworm.

Doesn't go to the brain.

No, no brain or livers or anywhere
else.
Just the skin.
But once they're in, then theytunnel their way back into the
intestines.
And if they're lucky, they makeit there and they just stay
there because that's where theywanted to go.
But they can go anywhere justlike the roundworms, the lungs,
hopefully they can be coughed upand swallowed.
They do like to form thosedormant cysts, just like

(22:31):
roundworms in the liver and themuscle anywhere, basically.
And then they like to reactivateand emerge periodically
throughout the dog's life,especially during pregnancy.
There's something about thepregnancy hormones that kind of
trigger these guys to wake upand start burrowing again,
making their way back to theirintestine or to their babies.
So yeah, somehow they've evolvedto the way to that, that'd be a

(22:56):
trigger for them to reemerge.
It's really creepy.

That's crazy.

Yeah.
Only worms in the intestines aresusceptible to deworming.
I wanted to bring that out.
So all of these like insistedhibernating dormant cysts, they,
they can't be touched bydewormers.
They just stay there foreveruntil they make it back to the
gut.
And then your dewormertreatments will work.

Got it.
That's scary.

Yeah.
Yeah.
So puppies can be infected inutero or by nursing.
It can get into the milk andsometimes both ways they're
being infected.
Kittens though, they only get itfrom the environment or by
eating infected prey.
It's a weird difference abouthookworms.
Yeah.
Kittens seem a little moreresistant to them.
Cats in general.
But once they finally make itback to the intestines, then

(23:40):
they mature into adults.
They mate, just like everythingelse, and the females lay the
eggs, and then they go out inthe stool and start all over
again.
There's our hookworms.

These are just getting grosser and grosser.

Yeah.
Oh, there's lots more.

What are the signs of an infection with a hookworm?

Maybe diarrhea but the big problem
with the hookworms, especiallyfor puppies, is the anemia,
right?
They like to, again, suck bloodonce they get into the
intestines.
They drink a lot of blood, so ifthey have a high worm burden,
they can make a puppy veryanemic.

It's, it's right over there, Abigail.
Yeah.
Sorry.

She's so cute.
She did the perfect.

Yep.
Yep.
You always know when they do thepotty dance.
Yep.

Okay, so diarrhea, but mostly weakness
and lethargy from the anemia.

Okay.
Is there anything else you wantto tell us about hookworms
before we move on then?

There are some resistant hookworms.
Especially in the racinggreyhounds.
Apparently, they just have highworm burdens.
They've been deworming them forso long that they've actually
become resistant.
It's hard to get rid of them.

That's

crazy.
Moxidectin seems to work betterin those cases.

And

what's, what is moxidectin?
Can you remind me what that isfor?
Yes.
We'll go over all of thedifferent dewormers at the end
of all the life cycles.
So don't worry.

Excellent.

But just to remind you, moxidectin is also
in Simparica Trio, and NexGardplus and the topical Advantage
Multi has it.
It also treats heartworms.
We went over that last time.
It kills a lot of differentworms, but it does get hookworms
and it seems to work the best onthese resistant ones.
It's hard to really tell ifthey're resistant or just

(25:21):
infecting themselves over andover.
And again, other ones can bereactivating and then they're
getting new ones all the time.
So there's certain tests thatspecial labs can actually do to
see if they're resistant, but Idon't know.
I've never really run into thisbefore so I'm just trying not to
worry about it And it just makesme want to use the moxidectin

(25:41):
one.

Yeah.

And the other big thing is because the
anemia can get so bad especiallyin the puppies.
When they come to see you, andthey're super sick, then that
should be on your list of whyhe's anemic, and they might need
blood transfusions to help themsurvive and get through it,
because they can die from theirhookworms.

Yeah.

Sad puppies.

I know, they are sad.
I think I especially see it themost in kittens.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

They get anemic from it, too?
They get anemic from it.
I was only reading about it inpuppies for some reason.

We'll have to assume, but I'm sure they always
have other problems too.
We find fleas and all sorts ofstuff.

Yes, I've definitely seen the anemic flea
kittens.
They'll just drink all yourblood.

Let's do whipworms next then.
So what does a whipworm looklike?
And what is their life cycle?

Whipworms, here we go.
They're also small, much smallerthan roundworms.
But, because they look like awhip, like that's why they're
called that.
I always think of like the whipthat Indiana Jones had, like
with the big handle and then areally long curly tip.
So the handle end is real thickand it's short and that's where

(26:44):
they do the reproductive stuff,that's the reproductive end, and
then the long thread like tail,or it's called the lash, This is
the digestive end.
So it just kind of eats and eatsand eats through that.
The color of them is verysimilar to the others.
Light, light, tan, white,grayish.
The names Trichuris vulpis isthe big one in dogs.

(27:04):
Trichuris serrata is here incats.
In Europe it's called campanula.
A couple different ones.
Generally these more commonlyinfect dogs.
So it's more of a problem indogs.
If it's found in cats, it'susually a gee whiz incidental
thing.

Yeah.
I don't think I've ever seenone.

Yeah.
I would still deworm a cat if itwas positive for it.
Cause maybe it would go andinfect a dog or something, but
it doesn't seem to bother catsthat much, which is nice.

That's good.

Yeah.
Their life cycle is a lotsimpler than the other two.
The eggs are in the poop in theenvironment.
They are also hardy.
They never go away.
They'll stay in the soil foryears.
Takes them two to four weeksagain to form the embryos before
they can be infective.
The embryo eggs then areingested by a new host, usually
licking them off the fur.

(27:49):
Just the same as all the others.
But then, it's pretty simple.
They just hatch inside the smallintestine after they're
swallowed.
They don't need to go anyjourneys.
Yeah.
They don't need to do any ofthat crazy stuff.
They just grow up in the gut,but they do move very slowly
throughout the gut.
Like it takes them 74 to 87 daysto start from the stomach and

(28:10):
end up in the large intestine.
They go through the whole tract.
And they really like the cecumin the large intestine for some
reason, that's their favoritespot.

It's a nice little pouch.

Maybe.
Yeah, I don't know, they justlike it there.

Yeah.

I don't understand why these parasites
do these things.

Yeah, who knows?

That's where they like to be.
It takes them a couple months toget there.
And then they just stick theirhead into the, flesh of the
large intestine, or the cecum,and they stay there forever.
They make that their permanenthome and then they suck blood
there, and I think they absorbthe nutrients from the cecum as
well, but they don't suck bloodas much as hookworms, like
they're not causing anemia inthe same way.

(28:51):
They just cause more of acolitis because they're well,
we'll go into that.

So what are the signs then of having whipworms?

Yeah, when there's large amounts of them in
the colon or in the cecum area,it causes a lot of inflammation
there.
And inflammation in the colon iscalled colitis which basically
gives you diarrhea, right?
It's usually it's a bloody gooeydiarrhea.
With this one, it's reallynasty.
And then occasionally, this isinteresting, occasionally they

(29:20):
can suck too much of..
Like the colon's job is toabsorb water, right?
And help us stay hydrated andeverything.
And so when they're messing thatup, it can cause electrolyte
problems in those dogs.
And sometimes it mimicsAddison's disease, which we
talked about before.
So like the potassium can bereally high and the sodium low.
And so if you're suspicious forAddison's, you do the tests and

(29:40):
it's normal and you're confused,you could think, Hey, maybe.
Maybe this is a whipworminfection.

For anybody who's listening that's doing your
NAVLE testing, by the way, thatis a NAVLE question.

Is it really?

It is.

That's awesome.
Do you actually remember that?

Yes.

Were you asked that?

Yes.

Oh man, I don't remember that.
This was new for me.

Yeah.
Yeah, I remember that, and thenI ended up seeing it later in my
internship.

Oh, very cool.
So you actually saw one that youthought..
That's very cool.
So it's a thing.

Yes.

I have more fun facts about it.
Okay.
Sometimes it can be hard todiagnose them because these are
a type of worm, like we weretalking about before, that the
females don't lay eggscontinuously.
Like roundworms and hookwormsdo.
They're just Egg machines.
They're just constantly puttingout their eggs.
And so it's easy to find them ona fecal, but whipworm eggs, like

(30:34):
the females are like, I don'twant to lay an egg today.
And they just hang out for a fewdays or week.
And then, then they put out acouple eggs.
So it's very intermittent andsometimes it can be missed on a
fecal.
So unless you're like checkingfecals, like every week for a
couple of weeks, sometimes youmight not necessarily find them.
And it can be a false negative.
So if you have one of thoseAddison's dogs, it's not
Addison's and the fecal'snegative, still deworm them.

Exactly.

Still could be whipworms.
Also they take a long time tomature, right?
74 to 87 days or whatever to getfrom the stomach to the colon.
So if you're deworming them onetime, usually that's not enough.
And you have to remember to tryand do it again, like two or
three months later, and that'seasily forgotten.
So it's just another reason todo frequent deworming or maybe a

(31:20):
preventative all the time sothat you don't even have to
worry about it.
And you're just constantlytreating for them.

Yeah.

And a good thing about whipworms is they
don't get into humans at all.
Yay!

Good.
That's excellent.

Yep.
So we don't have to worry aboutwhipworms.

Right.

Just hooks and rounds.
Especially rounds.

Especially rounds.
Alright, last but not least,let's do tapeworms.
What does a tapeworm look likeand then what is their life
cycle?

Okay, so there's many many types of
tapeworms.
There's for simplicity's sakeI'm just going to focus on the
couple that we see in cats anddogs.
The biggest one is theDipylidium caninum.

Yeah.

So dipylidium basically.
They're known as a commontapeworm or the flea tapeworm
because they have to have, aswe'll go into their life cycle,
they have to have a flea intheir life cycle to complete I'd
say over 90%.
I, I didn't actually find thatnumber.
I'm just anecdotally saying thatmost of the time, the tapeworms
that we see are these kinds, theflea tapeworm.

(32:15):
Very, very common.
And I think as I describe whatthey look like, I will tell you
about their life cycle.
Because it all goes together.

Makes sense.

Yeah, it's a story.
So let's start with the head ofthe tapeworm.
If you can imagine like a crazyhat with hooks on it, or when I
saw the picture, I thought of asea anemone.
It's like all those littletentacles coming out and the
center is blank.
And there's a little hole in themiddle.
That's like where everythinggoes in.
So pretty nasty head.
And then there's a neck.
And after that there's just eggsac segments.

(32:48):
And they can just keep producingthose and making the really long
worm.
And it can be over six inchessome of the other types can be
yards long.
Like really disgusting longworms.

It reminds me of if you were to put flat Lego
pieces together.
Just like making these longsegments.

Yes.
Yeah.
They just keep adding on.
When they're growing, they justmake more and more of these
segments and they just age andget longer and longer and
longer.

Yeah.

And it's very flat.
These segments are flat, like itlooks like a piece of tape.
That's why they're calledtapeworms.
The head absorbs the nutrientsthrough its skin, so it doesn't
suck much blood, it just anchorson there and then all of its
nutrients are just from the foodthat the animal is eating.
They just absorb it throughtheir skin.

I didn't know they absorbed it through their skin.

Yes.
That's interesting.
They don't really eat that muchblood.
And then the segments, each arevery interesting, they're their
own little being.
Each segment is, it's got itsown digestive system and its own
reproductive tracts.
As they get older, the digestivesystem kind of atrophies and
goes away as they get towardsthe tip of the tail.

(33:54):
And then at the end, like whenthey're about to break off,
they're just basically areproductive tract full of eggs.
So the eggs develop in them asthey age and move down the line.
And then finally they break offand these make their way out the
butt, right?
They, they don't necessarilypoop them out.
They'll sometimes just crawltheir way out of the anus.

(34:14):
I do say that

Like you'll go to get a temperature and you'll
commonly see them just hangingout around the anus.

And they move.
They can move at first.
They're like wiggling hello atyou.
I think I like to liken themwhen they first come out like
that as something like acucumber seed.
You know, they're white andflat.
And, and wider in the middle.
And then, as they move out, theyeventually dry and die.
And then they get thinner andsmaller and dry.

(34:43):
More like a sesame seed or adried grain of rice.
And then eventually they'llbreak open and then all of those
eggs that are inside of themwill contaminate the area where
they ended up.
So it's sometimes on the dog orthe cat or where they've been
laying down their bed orwhatever.
And then all those littlemicroscopic eggs are just
released in that spot.

(35:04):
And so the eggs at this point,they're not infectious to
mammals.
They have to go through a fleabefore they can reach their next
life cycle stage.
You could eat a proglottid andnothing would happen.
It'd be alright.

We're eating a lot of worms this episode.

But okay, to talk about fleas a little bit
again, because they're soimportant to this tapeworm.
Do you remember when I calledthe animals that have fleas,
salt shakers?

Yes.

So all the eggs that the fleas are laying
on the pet, they're not sticky,they just roll right off into
the environment.
And so if we have a dog or a catthat has both fleas and
proglottids, those flea eggs arefalling into the environment and
the proglottids are falling intothe environment, like together
in harmony.
And then the flea larvae willhatch out of the flea egg,

(35:50):
right?
And so they're like a littleworm, too, a little maggot,
tiny, tiny.
And then they, they just eatwhatever they can, whatever is
near them.
They like to eat dust and fleapoop, right?
That's like milk for the fleababies.

Yeah, so gross.

And if there happens to be some
tapeworm eggs nearby.
Delish, let's eat those too.
And so they just thrive oneating all of that stuff.
And that's how the tapeworm egggets inside of the flea.
So then the flea larva maturesinto a pupa and then hatches out
as an adult flea.
And it has the tapeworm insideof it, right?

(36:24):
It's like a development stage ofthat tapeworm that is inside the
flea.
And it has to do that before itcan move on.
So then that flea jumps backonto another cat or dog, and
eventually gets eaten by the cator dog.
It's very common for them to eattheir fleas.
And that's how it gets back intothe intestines, and then hatches
and it starts all over again.

(36:45):
Yay.
So the Taenia species are thenext one that we do see
sometimes.
These guys, there's a wholebunch of Taenia species.
There's the one that we see alot is the Taenia pisiformis,
which gets into rabbits.
So instead of the flea eatingthe eggs, the rabbit or an
intermediate host, so besidesrabbits, like there's other ones
that will get into rats or miceor sheep or cows or pigs or

(37:08):
deer.
And so there's all thesedifferent types of Taenia
species that will get into theseother intermediate hosts instead
of a flea, basically.
And so then if the dog or cateats one of those animals
instead of a flea, basicallythey're eating the rat or
whatever.
And then these do migratethrough the liver.

(37:28):
Not in the dog or cat, but inthe intermediate host.
So like the rabbit will have thetapeworm migrate into its
abdomen and the deer too.
I remember in vet school, wedissected a deer in necropsy
class and it had the hydatidcysts in its belly.
I hope they were super nasty.

Yeah.

But now I understand them a little bit
more.
So that was a tapeworm basicallythat migrated through the deer
and then they fall through theblood vessel into the abdomen
basically.
And then they form this little,it's like a sack.
That's pale colored.
And then they just hang outthere until the animal dies
basically.
So once the deer dies, somebodyeats that hydatid cyst and then

(38:06):
they get the tapeworm that way.
And that happens in rabbits too.
That's the one we see the mostis cause there's a lot of
rabbits around here.
But there's so many types oftapeworms that will get into
these other animals and thenthey can get them that way.
I think we see so many fleasthat that's probably why we see
that tapeworm flea more often.
We don't see as many huntinganimals that get the Taenia type

(38:27):
of tapeworm, but, but there itis.
And then there's one more typeof tapeworm that I wanted to
talk about which is theEchinococcus multilocularis
These are nasty.
These are really small tapewormsand their proglottids are very
hard to see.
Like they're tiny, almostmicroscopic, and then they mix
in with the dirt and you can'treally tell they were ever

(38:49):
there.
And they're similar to Taenia inthat they have the intermediate
mammal hosts, usually rodents,and a lot of times sheep for
some reason.
It seems to be a thing.
And then if the dog or cat eatsthat rodent, then they'll get
the tapeworm and they can shedthose eggs near the people.
And it's really dangerous tohumans.
This particular type of tapewormwill migrate through people.
And again, it's not the normalhost.

(39:11):
So they just go crazy and theyusually go into multiple organs
and form the hydatid cyststhere, which are almost like
tumors in the liver and thatkind of thing.
It's fatal usually for people.
It's really nasty.
So it's all over the CDC.
You can read a lot aboutechinococcus on there because
it's a zoonotic risk.

(39:32):
The reporting of it, it's beenworldwide.
We see it everywhere.
On our end of the world, we'veseen it in Alaska, up in Canada.
There's been reports in NewMexico and Arizona,
interestingly.
And it seems to be in more areaswhere there's rural grazing
areas, especially for sheep.
And then there's sheepdogs.
Herding them and a lot of dogsand sheep together.

Yeah.

So I think after reading about that, I
think if I ever had a sheepdogor working sheepdog, I would
make sure I'm deworming them fortapes frequently.
Just to try to avoid thatproblem.

Yeah.

And there are some, which I'll go into in
a bit, but there's someheartworm preventatives that,
there's one called InterceptorPlus, that the plus part has
Praziquantel in it, which killstapeworms.
So I feel like sheepdogs shouldbe on that.
Then you won't have to worryabout getting that tapeworm.

Right.

As the owner.

Yeah.

Okay, so there's that.

So what are the clinical signs then for
infection with tapeworms?

So maybe some GI upset and
malnourishment.
They do steal food from theintestines a little bit if they
have a lot of tapeworms.
But overall, believe it or not,tapeworms are less harmful than
all the other ones we talkedabout.
As disgusting as they are,they're not that bad.
And you can treat them prettyeasily.
Usually the scary part is themigrating when they're in the

(40:47):
other types of hosts.
They don't do a lot of harm tothe dogs or the cats themselves.
Yeah.

Nice.
Are there any more notes thatyou have on tapeworms before we
move on?

They are usually diagnosed by just seeing
the proglottids, right?
They're very visible, very big,and you can just, oh my god, my,
there's a proglottid, my dog hastapeworms.
It's hard actually to see theeggs on a fecal test, like when
we're sending out those fecals,those proglottid pieces where
all the eggs are, are exitingbefore they release all those

(41:17):
eggs.
So unless they're like rupturingfor some reason inside the
intestine, which they don't do,you're hardly ever going to see
the eggs on a fecal stoolsample.
So if the fecal is negative, butyou see proglottids you know we
have tapeworms.
It's okay.
Yeah.
You don't have to have apositive fecal.
And usually you don't, usuallyit's negative.
So yeah.

(41:38):
Yeah.
So that's just one littletidbit.

Nice.
So are any of these worms morecommon in puppies and kittens
than they are in adult dogs orcats?

They have the same types of worms both in
adults and the young, but we seethem more commonly in the young
because again, like with roundsand hooks, they usually start
out with them because the momhad reemergence of her cysts.
And then they went into the milkand to the uterus.
And so they're starting out..
Plus the young puppies andkittens, their immune systems
are immature and not veryeffective and they have a harder

(42:09):
time dealing with parasites.
And they just can't fight themoff naturally at all.
And they're just moresusceptible to all the effects
of harboring those parasites,especially the hookworms.
Like they just don't have a lotof blood to begin with.
They're tiny.
And if the hookworms are eatingall their blood, then they get
anemic really quick.
And so it's just a lot worse inthe smaller, younger animals,
but it doesn't mean that theadults don't get them too.

We just see it more commonly because we're
seeing a lot of those symptomsmore commonly in puppies and
kittens, it seems.

Yeah, and they're just more apt to get
them.
We can pretty much assume thatthey're born with them.
Whereas adults, hopefully we getrid of them at some point.

Yeah, hopefully.
Unless they like, go and hidelike you were talking about.

Yes, yeah.

All right.
So there's a lot of worms.
I know there's not even all theworms that you want to cover,
but there's a lot of wormsthere.

Yep.

So let's talk about treatment for them.
Are there dewormers to treat allof these?

Yes, we can.
Luckily we have lots ofeffective treatments for all of
these worms.

Oh, good.

Let me go into it.
I'd say the hard part though,just as an overview, Is doing it
at the right time, right?
During the life cycle or longenough or often enough to keep
preventing them from comingback.
And they do come back all thetime.
And we have to consider otherparasites too, right?
There's fleas and ticks thatwe've already talked about and
heartworms.
And it's nice because a lot ofthese combination products have

(43:27):
come about now to help us dealwith all of them in an easy way.
But for rounds and hookwormsthere's many different dewormers
that will work.
I'll just go through them.

Yeah.

Pyrantel is the number one big one that we
use all the time.
It's also known as Strongid.
I think it has a couple othernames.
It's that yellow sweet liquidthat we give

Banana.

to puppies.
Yeah.
Actually, I think it's more likecake batter.
I tasted it.

Yeah.
I always thought it tasted likebanana.

But it's sweet.
It's actually got like maybesugar in it.
I don't know.
So puppies really like it.
Kittens, interestingly, theydon't have sweet taste buds, so
they could care less about it.
They usually don't like it whenI'm squirting it in their
mouths, but we do it anyway.
So Pyrantel is very safe, veryeffective on rounds and
hookworms.
It's often also added to a lotof these combo products.

(44:14):
Like it's in Simparica Trio,it's in HeartGard Plus, it's in
NexGard.
All of them have the Strongidusually mixed in to help control
the rounds and the hooks.
Over the counter, there's onecalled Piperazine.
It's not as effective, likethere's one type of roundworm
that it doesn't get very well.
So I don't usually recommendthat, and that's not really in
any of the prescription onesanymore.

(44:36):
But it might help, and it'sharmless, so you can, you can
get that one over the counter.
Fenbendazole, it's also known asPanacur or Febantel is like a
version of Fenbendazole.
Like I think it turns intoFebantel or the other way
around.
Those also kill rounds and hooksand one type of tapeworm, the

(44:57):
Taenia species only.
And we prescribe that veryoften.
I have a feeling it might beover the counter as well.

I believe that it is.

I think Strongid is as well now I think
about it.

Strongid is for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.
I think Fenbendazole is too.

Yeah.
So you can find all of theseover the counter and they all
work against these parasites.
Rounds and hooks anyway, forsure.

Yeah.

Milbemycin oxime, that one is in
Interceptor and Sentinel andTrifexis and a couple others.
It's been around a long time.
It's also touted as a heartwormpreventative that we went over
last time.
That does also kill rounds andhooks.
And then moxidectin, I alreadytouched on that.
It's in Simparica Trio, NexgardPlus, Advantage Multi, many
others are adding it in nowbecause it's very effective for

(45:39):
rounds and hooks and also forheartworms and now resistant
hookworms, apparently it seemsto be better.
But it's interesting because alot of them have moxidectin and
pyrantel in them.
And I think it's dose dependent.
I remember I asked a rep aboutthat.
I'm like, why do you bother withpyrantel when moxidectin is also
killing rounds and hooks?
But they said it has to be adifferent dose of the moxidectin

(45:59):
to get the rounds and hooks.
So I don't know.
I think using them together, whynot?
Make sure you get them.

Yeah.

Selamectin is another one that's in
Revolution.
That's a topical.
Kills rounds and hooks.
And then there's a couple ofothers that work for rounds and
hooks, but they are morepotential to be toxic.
So we have to just be carefulwith them.
So Ivermectin is a big one.
Emodepside is like a topical onethat's in Profender.
And then there's one calledEprinomectin.

(46:28):
Which is in NexGard Combo, whichis a topical for cats and
Centragard.
It's another topical, I believe.
Those last two there is someliterature out there saying they
can kill the migrating larva ofthe rounds in the hooks, which
is nice.
But probably not the insistedones.
If they're moving, they'll getthem, but once they make their
little cyst, it's hard to get inthere.

(46:50):
So it still won't get those.
But these can be potentiallylethal to dogs that have the
MDR1 gene mutation.
And apparently there's cats alsothat can have that mutation,
which I just learned about.
Yeah.

I didn't know that, yeah.

I did not.
It's super rare.
It's only 4% or less of all catshave the mutation, but it has
been shown to kill those cats.
So I think there's a blood test,but it's like only a special lab
does it.
And who's going to want to testtheir cat for that just to use
this product.
So I don't know.
There's a lot there, but it doeswork against rounds and hooks

(47:24):
too.
So I had to mention it.
So for whipworms, they're alittle trickier.
There's only a few that willkill whipworms.
So I'll go over it.
So Fenbendazole will killwhipworms.
Milbemycin oxime will.
Moxidectin will.
And then there's an olderdewormer called Oxantel.
It's more common in Australiaand Canada.

I was like, I've never even heard of that.

I did see that the compounding pharmacies,
they make you can make your ownparasite preventative capsule
and put whatever dewormers youwant in there.
It's interesting.
And that's one of the options.
You can put Oxantel in there ifyou want.
So anyway, those all getwhipworms.
So Pyrantel will not getwhipworms.
And some of those others willnot either.
Ivermectin doesn't touch them.

(48:08):
So you have to use one of thosefor whips and then tapeworms are
the trickiest.
They need their own specialdewormer.
The big one that gets all thetypes of tapeworms is
Praziquantel.
That's my favorite.
It just works the best.
I think that's the one we shouldgenerally use.
But there are some others.
Again, Fenbendazole is labeledfor tapes, but it can be
misleading, especially for anover the counter purchase.

Yeah.

Because it says tapes on there.
But it doesn't tell you thatit's only the Taenia species.
So if your dog ate a rabbit andhas that kind of a tapeworm,
sure, that'll take care of it.
But most likely he's got theflea tapeworm.

So like 90 percent of them, right?

Yep.
And it's not gonna get thosetapeworms for you.
So I wouldn't use it as adewormer for tapes.
I actually never even think ofit as one.
So there's another one calledEpsiprantel.
Also known as Cestex, it's likea tapeworm dewormer, but it
doesn't work so great in theDipylidium.
Like there's some resistance.

(49:04):
Maybe it helps get some of them,but not all of them.
So Praziquantel's better.
But I'd say for tapeworms, themost important thing to remember
is to control those fleas,right?
Because if we don't have fleacontrol, they're just going to
keep infecting themselves withmore and more tapeworms, and
then you can deworm them all youwant, but they're just going to
keep getting more.

You should go back and listen to the flea episode,
and how like, how long that lifecycle is for the flea, and how
long they live in theenvironment.
You definitely want to controlfleas.

Yes, absolutely.
That's so important forcontrolling not just the fleas,
but for tapeworms, I'd say evenmore important than the actual
dewormer is just controlling thedamn flea.

So how often do you feel like we need to deworm
our pets?

Yeah, good question.
So there's so many types ofcommon worms and they all have
different, what we call prepatent periods.
To define that, that's the timeit takes from infection, like
you eat the egg, to when youstart seeing the worms manifest
however they do, like in yourpoop or whatever.
Or the symptoms, yeah, manifest.
And so it can be a long time.

(50:06):
Like those whipworms, it'sseveral months before they
actually hit the colon and startcausing colitis.
So yeah, it can be hard to knowwhen to treat.
So larval cysts are in the liverand the muscle, and they're not
affected by routine dewormers,and they're reemerging and
getting new ones all the time.

(50:26):
So they're like basicallygetting cycles of new worms into
their intestines all the time,especially the puppies are.
So we recommend deworming themfrequently for that.
Plus they can just reinfectthemselves all the time from the
environment.
So to help with that initialstart when they're born with the
worms and everything.
Right around six to eight weeks,it's just usually when we first
see them like breeders couldeven do it before then if they

(50:46):
want, I think as early as fourweeks, you can start deworming
them if you want.
But basically keep giving themthat pyrantel every two to four
weeks until they're over likefour months old at least like 16
weeks when we stop all theirvaccines too, and then after
that we can use our fecal teststo decide.
Okay, did we clear them all?
Are we good if it's negativethen we can back off those
frequent dewormings.

(51:06):
But I probably would recommendkeeping up a monthly dewormer
thereafter.
Just because of all of this thatwe just talked about.

So you like the dewormer through being an adult,
or a monthly dewormer like..

Their whole life.

Their whole life.

Yeah.

Okay.

Why not?
Yeah.
Because we see fleas all thetime, too.

Right.

And again, I talked about in the flea and
the heartworm preventative talk,the Simparica Trio, for example,
has your flea, your tickcontrol.
Pyrantel in there for yourrounds and your hooks.
And then Moxidectin too forheartworm prevention.
So it's like an easy way to keepyour dog healthy and to not have
to worry about whether or notthey're getting reinfected or a

(51:47):
new one is emerging from a cystfrom long ago and all of that.

So my wife is going to ask me if our dogs are
on Simparica Trio, and that is,yes.

Excellent.

After she hears this episode.

Have they been on it?
I think it's one of the bestones.

I think I started it after you told me you needed
to put them on Simparica Trio.
And I was like, okay, thenthat's the one I'll choose.
Yes.

There's actually a new one called
Credelio Quattro that's comingout.
It's not yet here.
I just heard about it.
I don't know what the Quattrois, like four different
parasites, four differentingredients.
What's that going to be?
But supposedly Credelio, likethe isoxazoline in there that
kills fleas and ticks and mitesand all that, it just works a
little bit better on certaintypes of ticks, like kills them

(52:33):
faster than the one that's inSimparica.

Interesting.

So if the data is there and when that
comes out, I might be changingmy tune.

Right?
Yeah.
Exactly.
We'll have to do a new one juston Credelio after that.

There's always newer and better ones,
I'm actually very happy thatthese newer ones have come out
because it really helps us stayon top of these parasites and an
easy way for owners too.
Like, just give this once amonth.
You don't have to worry aboutany of this life cycle stuff.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Okay.
So what about indoor pets?
Do they get worms as well?

Yeah.
I'd say it's less likely ingeneral.
But think about thosecockroaches, right?
That's going to have hookworms.

I wouldn't say I have a lot of cockroaches, but
there's like insects and stuffthat come to the house.

Yeah.
And flies, those land on poopoutside and then come inside and
land on you and your cat eatsthem.
So it can happen that way.
Fleas I've seen in the indoorcats all the time, they find a
way into your cat.
And those bring tapeworms, so Ithink it's just a good idea for
both indoor and outdoor pets todo a monthly preventative or

(53:40):
like Bravecto Plus lasts for twoto three months in cats, so just
do that every few months isgood.

Yeah.

There's many ways to do it.
And many great products outthere.
And every household isdifferent.
Every pet's a little different.
Life is different.
It doesn't have to be exactlythat for everybody, and
certainly you can back off onthe indoor animals, cats a
little bit.
I think if you have negativefecals all the time, then you
can probably stop worrying aboutit so much.
But it's not wrong to just keepit up either.

Okay, so are there any over the counter dewormers
that are safe to use for pets?
I know you went into a littlebit of them.

Yeah, so a lot of those roundworm ones I
think are available over thecounter.
A lot of the heartworm ones areprescription.
And they're generally safe toanswer the question.
Yes.
I worry though about them beingeffective for kind of multiple
reasons like, is it the rightdose?
Are you getting the right dosefor your size, weight of pet?
Are you treating the rightparasite is a big one, right?

So we've named many different parasites, but
there's so many more.

Yes.

And it may say tapeworms, but may not be the
right tapeworm.

And like I went over, some only get, like
whips only need specific onesand tapes need specific ones.
So you might be thinking you'redeworming your pet when you're
not really being effective aboutit.
And then they can just reinfectthemselves as well.
And so it's like in order to doit right, it's nice to have a
vet's guidance, I think.
And then like we could even, ifmoney is an issue or whatever,

(55:01):
we can say, okay, you need thisdose of Pyrantel and you need to
try and find Praziquantel whichI think I've seen over the
counter as well.

I think so.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah.

And I could just tell them how many
milligrams, but they might notknow the right dose or whatever.
So I think at least asking yourvet about it is a good idea.

Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's not going to get all ofthose things still, right?
Like there's, there's, no overthe counter that's going to get
every single one of those worms.

Probably not.
Unless you tried to do your ownspecial combo and overdid it a
bit.
I'd be worried about toxicityand stuff too.
Just gotta be careful, and Ithink it helps to understand
what parasites your dog or cathas, and then you know how best
to prevent and treat them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.
Well, perfect.
Anything else you wanted toshare with us?

Oh, I got some sources, if anybody cares.

Yes.

I got a lot of this from the CAPC website,
so Companion Animal ParasiteCouncil, it's a wonderful
website.
They have an alphabetical listwhere you can just go to like W
and look up whipworms, or T fortapeworms, all of it's there.
The Center for Disease Control,the CDC, also has quite a lot of
good information on parasites,mostly focused on the human end

(56:09):
though, but if you want to learnmore about cutaneous larva
mimigrans, and the echinococcus,heartworm, tapeworm, super
nasty.
You can read more about itthere.
VeterinaryPartner.com is a greatresource as well.
They recap all of these thingsvery nicely in one little
handout for each parasite.
I often email those to clientswhen I have a positive fecal,

(56:31):
then they want to know moreabout the parasite.
And then I looked at Plumb'sVeterinary Drug Handbook quite a
bit.
A lot of the drugs in here, justreally helps to know what
they're doing, how they'reworking, what parasites they're
covering.
And then all of the packageinserts for these, especially
the prescription parasitepreventatives like Credelio or
Simparica Trio, they have alittle packet inside, unfold it,

(56:53):
and it's like a huge document oflots of information about safety
studies and what parasites arecovered and all of that's in
there.
It's really good information.

Nice.
Good.
So the question I was going toask you, you answered a little
bit, but I'm going to ask itagain.

Okay.

So I was going to ask you, have any of your pets
ever gotten worms?

Yeah, I think my cat's got tapes.
They've had fleas a couple oftimes.
Yeah, it's been horrible.
My own cats, yes.
They've had fleas.

And do you keep up on the flea prevention
constantly?

Obviously not.
There was a lapse, apparently.
I try, but, I'm forgetful.

It's hard.
I even put it in my phone to tryto remember.
I liked Bravecto for a while forthe dogs because it lasted for a
couple of months.
So by the time I remembered, Ithas already been probably three
months.
And I was like, Oh yes, I needto give them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It goes by quick.
I have to write it on a calendarand I have reminders and
sometimes even those go pastthem and then I'm like thinking
about, I think he's due.
And I look and I'm like, Oh myGod, we're a month overdue.
And then I put it on.
So but I try and yeah thetapeworms, I wasn't that freaked
out because I know, I just sawthe proglattids and I'm like,
okay, here we go.
And I just dewormed them.
It was okay.

Yep.
Yep.

So it happens to the best of us.

Yep, exactly.

That's why we have all these wonderful
drugs to help us.

All right.
Perfect.
Thank you, Dr.
Z.
We appreciate you so much comingon to talk about our parasites.

You're so welcome.
My pleasure.

I know.
It's one of your favoritethings.
I think a lot of people aregoing to be grossed out at this
point.

Yeah.
Look at the pictures.

Yeah, exactly.
Perfect.
And then next time we talk, sowe'll talk about some more
parasites too, right?

Yeah, I wanted to go over like the
flukes and the single celledparasites like Giardia and
Coccidia.
I think it'll be quicker.
But I didn't know how else toorganize it.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I think this is great withthe most common ones.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right.
Thank you again, Dr.
Z.
And as always, guys, make sureyou keep your pets happy,
healthy, and safe.
Thanks.
We'll see you next week.
And that wraps up for today'sepisode of Vetsplanation.
We hope you found our deep diveinto the world of worms and
parasites both enlightening andhelpful and maybe a bit creepy

(58:55):
if you guys looked at thepictures on YouTube.
Remember, keeping your petshealthy is all about prevention
and just being informed.
A huge thank you to Dr.
Z for sharing her wealth ofknowledge and expertise, and to
Shawn Hyberg for doing ourpodcast, and for Kelly Dwyer for
doing our website.
If you enjoyed today's episode,make sure you subscribe and

(59:17):
leave us a five star review.
We love hearing from you guys.
Next week, we'll be backtackling more fascinating
topics, including things likehow pets can become blind and
how they do when they're blind.
Like, are they able to getaround well?
Are they able to live a normallife being blind?
You won't want to miss thisepisode.

(59:37):
Until then, make sure you alwayskeep your pets happy, healthy,
and safe.
Thanks for tuning in and we'llsee you next time.

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