If you are a happy dog-owner (especially if you currently own your very first pet), then one of the things you have to watch for in regards to your dog’s health would be tapeworms. These flat, thin worms can grow quite long, and can be a great source inconvenience and of distress for your dog if it happens to have any. Unfortunately, these cases can be very common, as your dog could be easily exposed to this by swallowing fleas, nibbling on the remains of other animals, or simply being around places where tapeworm larvae can thrive in.
Before you can try to kill the tapeworms in dogs however, first you need to make sure that it even has tapeworms to begin with. The most obvious symptom would be the presence of white, spaghetti-like substances in its stool, but they could also be present around your pet’s anus.
Once you have properly determined that your pet has a case of tapeworms then you can continue with this article, which provides a process that guides you in effectively killing tapeworms in dogs and preventing your pet from being re-infected by following steps listed below.
- Your dog’s immediate health is involved, so this is not the time to be thinking up of home-made remedies. Call up your veterinarian (who should ask you to bring a fresh stool sample). Once you get the chance to acquire the sample, do so and head straight to the clinic.
- If your dog does indeed have a case of tapeworms, then the veterinarian should prescribe some pills—typically given immediately, as a pet clinic should have these pills in stock always. If you are lucky, then the pills prescribed should not only take out tapeworms, but plenty of other different kinds of worms as well, so if your dog has other cases of worms that you are not aware of, the pills should do the trick.
- Once you get home, feed your dog the pills given to you. The number of pills your dog needs to take will normally depend on how big and heavy it is. This will take care of the tapeworm infestation in your dog’s system, as well as any other type of worm if it is the right kind of pill.
- However, there is always a chance for these tapeworms to come back, especially if the dog’s stool from before it was given the pills still remain in your yard. Once you have finished administering the medication to your dog, make sure that you clean up all of the stools that it left before you got home from the clinic. In fact, to prevent a new case of tapeworms from occurring ever again, you should always clean up after your dog as soon as possible. It can be a lot of leg work, but it is well worth the price of a healthy, happy pet dog.
A dog infected with tapeworms may not seem like a very pleasant
situation, but at the same time it is not completely life threatening.
The only thing that matters is your dog’s safety and health, and if it
is being compromised by something such as this (however slightly), then
it should be rectified as soon as possible, especially since it is quite
easy to get rid of tapeworms.