Category: Pet Health

The Dangers of Heartworm Disease and How to Prevent It

When mosquitoes are active, cats and dogs are at risk of getting heartworms, and these pesky parasites can put the health of our pets in serious danger.

The Dangers of Heartworm Disease and How to Prevent It

Mosquitos are active in Wisconsin from May through September (or until the weather gets cold enough that they start to die off). When mosquitoes are active, cats and dogs are at risk of getting heartworms, and these pesky parasites can put the health of our pets in serious danger. Keep reading to learn everything you should know about the dangers of heartworm disease and how to prevent it.
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What Are Heartworms?

Heartworms are a type of parasite carried and spread by mosquitoes. Mosquitos pick up heartworm larvae when they bite infected animals. They then transfer the heartworm larvae to pets when they, in turn, bite a cat or dog.

Heartworm Disease in Dogs and Cats

When bitten by a mosquito carrying heartworm larvae, the larvae enter a pet’s bloodstream and travel to the heart and lungs where they grow, mature, and reproduce.
Heartworms can damage a pet’s heart and lungs, causing respiratory problems, cardiovascular problems, and even fatal heart failure. The symptoms and health problems caused by a heartworm infection are referred to as heartworm disease. Dogs are natural hosts for heartworms. This means that the parasites can grow to maturity in a dog, making heartworm disease much more severe in canines than it is in felines. Cats are not natural hosts for heartworms, and while a few might survive in a cat’s system, they rarely experience the same degree of infestations as dogs. However, heartworms can still wreak havoc on a cat’s health.
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Why It's Essential to Protect Your Pet From Heartworms

There is no treatment for heartworm disease in cats, and the treatment for heartworm disease in dogs is lengthy and not always successful. For this reason, preventing your pet from contracting heartworms is essential to protecting their health.
The best way to protect cats and dogs from heartworm disease is to provide them with preventative heartworm medication. These come in both oral tablets that are usually administered monthly and preventative injections that are administered every six or twelve months, depending on the type of injection administered. Additionally, we recommend taking steps to minimize mosquito populations around your home by cleaning up your yard and eliminating standing water where mosquitoes lay their eggs.

Schedule a Screening and Heartworm Prevention Appointment With Our Wisconsin Veterinarian

Administering a heartworm preventative to a pet that has already been infected with heartworm parasites can be fatal. For this reason, our veterinarians at Animal Wellness Center in Wisconsin always screen pets for heartworms with a simple blood test prior to administering a heartworm preventative. To learn more or schedule an appointment for your dog or cat, we welcome you to contact one of our Wisconsin veterinary clinics today.

Grain-Free Diets: Friend or Foe? What You Should Feed Your Pet

With all the choices and confusing marketing in the pet food aisle, choosing what to feed your pet can be an overwhelming task. Plus, pet food companies are experts in advertising, and they often spend lots of money promoting their latest, trendy formulations.

Grain-Free Diets: Friend or Foe? What You Should Feed Your Pet

With all the choices and confusing marketing in the pet food aisle, choosing what to feed your pet can be an overwhelming task. Plus, pet food companies are experts in advertising, and they often spend lots of money promoting their latest, trendy formulations – well before any research has been done to truly know whether or not these formulas are actually healthier for pets. Lately, foods that belong to a pet food category called BEG (boutique, exotic, or grain-free) diets have been all the rage in pet food, and it’s beginning to look like these fancy foods might not be the best dietary choice for your pets.
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What's Wrong With Grain-Free Pet Food?

As grain-free and boutique diets became increasingly popular over the last several years, veterinarians began noticing an uptick in the number of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) cases they were diagnosing in dogs. While some dog breeds are genetically predisposed to developing DCM, the cases were appearing in dogs with no genetic risk. This triggered the FDA to open up an investigation. Over the course of about five years, the FDA found that 90% of these dogs diagnosed with DCM were eating grain-free diets and 93% of them had diets that contained lentils or peas.

What Does This Mean for Your Dog?

The connection between grain-free diets and/or diets containing peas or lentils has not yet been proven. However, there is strong anecdotal evidence showing health improvement in dogs diagnosed with DCM after being taken off the BEG diets.
If your dog is currently eating a boutique, exotic, or grain-free diet that contains lentils or peas, you should let your veterinarian know and monitor their cardiovascular health closely. You can also talk with a veterinarian about switching your dog to a formulation that’s proven to be safe and healthy.
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Choose a Healthy Diet for Your Pet With Help From Animal Wellness Center

If you’re not sure what food, treats, and nutritional supplements are best for your pet, we strongly encourage you to schedule an appointment with a veterinarian at Animal Wellness Center in Wisconsin. Veterinarians receive lots of training in nutrition for pets and are always up to date on all the latest foods, formulations, and even prescription diets available.
We’ll evaluate your pet’s health, talk with you about goals for your pet’s diet, and help you select an appropriate food for your pet. Whether you’re hoping to manage your pet’s weight, stave off a chronic health condition, or simply raise a happy, healthy, and energetic pet, our veterinarians can help you do it with a balanced diet.