# Can't Get Rid of These Worms



## cgrasso67 (Dec 22, 2011)

If anyone could help, I would be extremely grateful. Our 5 month old pug has had numerous bouts with worms. First she had tapeworm because she came to us infested with fleas - so we treated the fleas immediately followed with what our vet recommended by giving us Panacur. She was also immediatley put on monthly Heartguard. This was at 3 months of age. At four months, she had worms again only this time I believed they were Roundworm or Hooks but our vet still gave another round of Panacur. Stool samples were negative everytime for anything but we watch them come out of her. She was then what seemed clean for about two weeks and now we have Hooks again. I took samples to the vet and was now put on Strongid. We did the first dose a week ago but there are still about 30-40 dead worms or eggs on her pillow every moning when she wakes up. She gets the second treatment in 3 days. Are these things ever going to go away? My poor baby has such a hard time going to the bathroom and her back side seems to bother her so much. Is there a better treatment out there that I should be asking the vet for or something that I can give her daily at home to help out? She also eats dirt continuously and I have read that this is one way to keep getting them but she came from a farm so trying to get her to stop eating the dirt has been difficult. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## Sled dog hotel (Aug 11, 2010)

cgrasso67 said:


> If anyone could help, I would be extremely grateful. Our 5 month old pug has had numerous bouts with worms. First she had tapeworm because she came to us infested with fleas - so we treated the fleas immediately followed with what our vet recommended by giving us Panacur. She was also immediatley put on monthly Heartguard. This was at 3 months of age. At four months, she had worms again only this time I believed they were Roundworm or Hooks but our vet still gave another round of Panacur. Stool samples were negative everytime for anything but we watch them come out of her. She was then what seemed clean for about two weeks and now we have Hooks again. I took samples to the vet and was now put on Strongid. We did the first dose a week ago but there are still about 30-40 dead worms or eggs on her pillow every moning when she wakes up. She gets the second treatment in 3 days. Are these things ever going to go away? My poor baby has such a hard time going to the bathroom and her back side seems to bother her so much. Is there a better treatment out there that I should be asking the vet for or something that I can give her daily at home to help out? She also eats dirt continuously and I have read that this is one way to keep getting them but she came from a farm so trying to get her to stop eating the dirt has been difficult. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


The problems could be two fold. That at first she was never put on a full puppy worming programme starting when it should and kept up in frequency to eradicate the whole life cycle completely in the first place and also if she is eating dirt or faeces along with it containing worm eggs she is re-infecting herself too.

The most common worm in puppies and dogs are roundworm. These are passed in the faces of infected dogs and cats. They have a thick shell and can survive in the environment for many years. Dogs or cats lick or sniff up the eggs, they hatch releasing larvae which travel through the body, which develope into adults and produce more eggs so the whole procedure starts again.

In addition to this pregnancy can waken any dormant worms in the pregnant bitch, or obviously if the bitch has a worm load anyway, these will be transfered to the pups across the placenta, in addition to this larvae also gets transferred via the bitches milk when they suckle. Thats why a lot of pups are born with worms, and why it is so important to pretreat mum and then pups too to make sure.

Tapeworms unlike the Roundworms above. Cannot be passed directly from one dog or cat to another via their infeccted faeces. They have to develope first in another animal. The most common animals to catch tapeworm from are
fleas/mice and rabbits. Tapeworms in your dogs stomach release segments, the eggs pass out in the faeces, the flea/mouse/rabbit ingests the eggs and the they developement in that animal, your dog or cat then ingests a flea or eats the rabbit or mouse then they get tapeworm that way.

Pups and kittens should start worming at 2 weeks old, then be wormed every 2/3 weeks until they are 12 weeks old, then monthly up to 6mths and then every 3/4 months like adults.

Personally I would start a worming programme like you would for a pup from scratch. Obviously treating the house for fleas and the dog too should eradicate the chance of picking up and ingesting fleas and possibly tapeworm eggs. If you can also stop her eating soil and along with it possibly eggs and re-infecting herself that way, with that and a full regular programme that should eradicate all life stages, andd then keep up a good routine regular worming, hopefully you should be OK.

Panacur paste by the way is pretty good, it does do, roundworms some types of tapeworm, giardia (protozoan parasite) and I believe it also is used in the treatment of lungworm too. Other ones that are good are Cestem and Drontal Plus. Also there is veterinary prescription only Milbemax that are very good.


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## cgrasso67 (Dec 22, 2011)

Thank you so much for your advice. We cannot use Panacur anymore because it is like she is on crack or something and is totally out of control, but she doesn't seem to have tapes anymore and the fleas are gone and is now on advantix to control that. However, I will take your advice and start the deworming from scratch with one of the others you had mentioned. She just had the first dose of the Strongid a week ago and is due in three days again so I am going to call the vet to see if they will continue these meds every two weeks acting as if she were a newborn. I don't believe she ever had more than one deworming before we got her and the living conditions were not the best. unfortunately the eating grass, leaves, twigs and dirt is a little harder habit to break (haha). As I said, she came from a farm and it seems to be in her nature so we are constantly telling her no and giving treats to get her to stop but this is not working so well. Again, thanks for the advise and hopefully we can kill these worms eventually before they start to harm her.:thumbup1:


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## Sled dog hotel (Aug 11, 2010)

cgrasso67 said:


> Thank you so much for your advice. We cannot use Panacur anymore because it is like she is on crack or something and is totally out of control, but she doesn't seem to have tapes anymore and the fleas are gone and is now on advantix to control that. However, I will take your advice and start the deworming from scratch with one of the others you had mentioned. She just had the first dose of the Strongid a week ago and is due in three days again so I am going to call the vet to see if they will continue these meds every two weeks acting as if she were a newborn. I don't believe she ever had more than one deworming before we got her and the living conditions were not the best. unfortunately the eating grass, leaves, twigs and dirt is a little harder habit to break (haha). As I said, she came from a farm and it seems to be in her nature so we are constantly telling her no and giving treats to get her to stop but this is not working so well. Again, thanks for the advise and hopefully we can kill these worms eventually before they start to harm her.:thumbup1:


If you can break the life cycle completely, which is why puppies are wormed so often at first, and then keep her regularly routinely wormed hopefully you should get over the problem. Eventually she should get over eating dirt and leaves and stuff so again that should help with the re-infecting.

If mum wasnt done properly and they had multi dogs where she came from, and none were wormed properly thats where you problem probably did start.
As they or the environment is never going to worm free. Hope you get it sorted soon.


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## staffybella (Sep 26, 2011)

my dog started showwing signs of having worms but she still had 3 months left till she was due to be wormed again so i thought i'd try some natural things to help like carrot, crushed pumkin seeds, mint and then i found some worming biscuits online which used natural stuff so you feed them everyday and this managed to stop all of the signs....so now i use that and worm her less often.
so maybe you could try that for her aswell as all of her worming treatment till it's sorted ....its called Verm-X Dog Crunchies and i got it from zooplus


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## Mum2Heidi (Feb 17, 2010)

My friend brought me back some Verm X info from an Equine Fair and it sounds v good stuff. You can give it daily in treat form or a couple of days a month as a liquid with their food. Sounds v good and all natural herbs.

At the moment I worm mine conventionally a couple of times a year and for the rest, she has a teasp of Diamotaceous Earth powder in her food a couple of times a week. 

Have a google of both and see what you think. I get my DE from ebay


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