What Causes Dog Heartworm: How Does Your Dog End Up Infected?

Dog heartworm is caused by a particular species of roundworm. Once this type of roundworm infects an animal, it will move to the larger blood vessels. The result is that the roundworm will find enough room to grow in the blood veins without being cramped. The unfortunate result is that the roundworm will eventually fill the heart, circulatory system and lungs of the infected animal.

It is important to understand the roundworm that causes dog heartworm disease in order to understand what causes dog heartworm.

The roundworm will start its life inside of an infected dog. Adult heartworms will give birth to live young every single day. This means that any infected animals will have millions of tiny worms living in side of their blood. (As a result, most early heartworm tests will check to see if there are any of these worm larvae inside of the dog's blood).

The reason that heartworm disease is so widespread and difficult to treat is the way in which it is spread. Heartworms will not reach adulthood inside of a dog that is already infected. This species of roundworm requires another stage in its lifecycle before it will reach adulthood.

The roundworm larva will float around inside of the infected animal until a mosquito feeds from the host dog. Once inside of the mosquito, the roundworms will move to the next stage of their lifecycle, and then wait until the mosquito feeds from an uninfected dog.

Once in a new host dog, the heartworms will migrate to the dog's heart and grow to adult length.

Fight heartworm with medication and by preventing mosquito contact.

Therefore, dog heartworm is caused by a combination of the parasitic heartworms and mosquito bites. If you would like to prevent heartworm infection in your pets, you should be thorough and try to avoid contact with mosquitoes or infected dogs.

You can protect against the heartworms directly by investing in heartworm preventative medications for your dog. Sentinel, Interceptor, and Heartgard Plus are all highly effective medications. Just make sure that you remember to treat your dog for heartworms once a month, or as directed by your vet.

Also, since you know that mosquitoes are a necessary part of the cause of dog heartworm, you should do what you can to reduce contact with mosquitoes.