Finding The Best Heartworm Medication Dogs

Heartworm is a parasite transmitted between animals through mosquito bites. Approximately the size of a thread, it can primarily affect dogs but has also been known to affect coyotes, cats, foxes, wolves, to name just a few. It is called as such because during adulthood, its primary target is the pulmonary arteries of the heart of its host animal. Making sure that your dog take medicine that can prevent heartworm can result to serious complications or even death of your dog.
Nearly all veterinarians are one in saying that the best way to prevent heartworm infection is to take monthly dosage of preventive heartworm medicine. Preventing any infection is possible by purchasing various kinds of drugs with prescription from a veterinarian. In the United States, some of the drugs approved for heartworm include ivermectin, moxidectin, and milbemycin. They are administered on a monthly basis either as a pill or as a chewable during mosquito season.
You need to ensure that your pet receives heartworm medication dogs on a monthly basis a month after the start of the mosquito season and must continue for one more month after the season. During the summer months when mosquitoes are prominent throughout the season, administration of preventive medicine must be done the whole year. For safety reasons, some pet owners even do treatments the whole year through regardless of the season.
There are two other possible ways your dog can receive heartworm medication. The administration of moxidectin can be done in 6 or 12 months time release injections. However, due to safety reasons, it is not available in the United states. On the other hand, the topical cream Advantage Multi Topical Solution, which incorporates both imidacloprid and moxidectin, is administered by applying to the dog’s skin.
Aside from heartworms, moxidectin also protects your dog from infections by roundworms, hookworms, whipworms. Imidocloprid prevents infection from adult fleas. Selamectin, which is marketed under the brand name Revolution, is a topical preventive heartworm medicine administered on a monthly basis.
Administering preventive drugs for heartworms is vital since dogs inflicted with an infection can be risky. Sometimes, even after the treatment, the dead heartworm can still break loose and make its way to the lungs which can lead to respiratory failure and death. Preventive heartworm medication dogs can be highly effective as regular administration can protect the dog from any infection.
While failure of protection is a possibility, the reason for such may only be attributed to irregular or wrong administration of the heartworm drugs. As pet owners may have flaws, most monthly preventive medications are designed to protect the dog even if one month is missed as long as the succeeding months dosage should be administered.