Heartworm prevention in dogs can seem like an expensive and unnecessary treatment, but it is vital to your favorite dogs health and by extension your pocketbook. Although you may have never known a dog who succumbed to heart worms, it is a very real threat to your pet and their longevity. The following five reasons should be enough to motivate you to properly treat your dog for heartworms.

1. Prophylactic Treatment is cost effective and life saving. Regular, Veterinarian recommended Heartworm preventative medication is not as expensive as you might think, and can be found on the internet at a steep discount to what a local Veterinarians office might price the medication. Preventing a Heartworm infestation is always preferred to treating the animal after symptoms have arisen.

2. After infection, Heartworms can stay in your dog up to 7 months before they have sypmtoms. The life stages of Heartworms include a six and a half to seven month period from your dog being bitten by an infected mosquito to adult worms living in the dogs heart. Treatment with preventative medications can kill the worms in this stage, before they grow and attach to your dogs heart.

3. Treatment of Heartworm infestation may kill an old or weak dog. Healthy young dogs can usually survive treatment of adult heartworms, but a dog whose organs are weak may not survive the treatment, if they even qualify for being treated due to any underlying conditions. It is so much easier to avoid the painful loss of a long time companion by treating preventatively for Heartworms.

4. Treatment of Heartworm infestations can be expensive and time consuming. Even if your pet is completely healthy other than the Heartworms, treatment for a full infestation can be hard on your dog and wallet. In the best cases your dog will need multiple courses of medication to completely eliminate the Heartworms and their offspring, and in the worse case, your dog may require Heart surgery to remove the adult Heartworms.

5. There can be complications to heartworm treatment, even in otherwise healthy animals. Complication due to treatment of Heartworm infestations can include dead worms breaking loose and traveling to the lungs. This serious condition can cause respiratory failure, and in the worst instances, death of the dog. It is a shame for any healthy and happy dog to be brought down in their prime, after an expensive and failed course of treatment that was otherwise completely preventable.

These five reasons are just the tip of the iceberg as to why heartworm prevention in dogs is so very important. As anyone who has lost a special companion to this completely preventable disease can tell you, it is not something to mess with. Penetrative medication is readily available and relatively cheap, compared to the alternative. There are several medications that can be given in only every six months, as compared to monthly for traditional treatments. There is no excuse for leaving a dog untreated for Heartworms. Look into it, I know your favorite dog will love you for it.