How to Properly Give Your Dog Oral Dewormers

1 Overview

Usually a puppy is already infected with roundworm via the mother’s placenta, so worms exist at birth; parasites (like roundworm) pass through the placenta and are born with the dog. After birth, licking fur, ground and mother spreads infection.

Tapeworm, hookworm and flatworms infect through outside contact. Littermates live together and almost all get infected. A conscientious seller deworms before 35 days, again at 45, and at about 60 days when with you.

But most sellers do not deworm properly; at 2-3 months, weaned and without maternal antibodies, infection easily causes loose stool – the turning intestines (internal parasitic enteritis), usually from roundworm, hookworm, tapeworm or coccidia.

A puppy’s gut is narrow; relatively many large roundworms cause diarrhea, thinness, even vomiting worms; white tongue coating. The dog is weak and listless, poor appetite, sometimes eats much yet never full, sometimes uninterested in food, belly swollen, looking fat.

Actually the belly is full of worms: arched back, frequent diarrhea, rough dull dry coat, daily weight loss, lost vitality, laziness, weak limbs, sleepy. With these signs, deworm internally.

Give the dewormer 1-2 hours after dinner; no need to fast. For puppies, Bayer and Heartgard are suggested; do not use combined internal-external dewormers so young – some side effects.

External deworming: many diseases spread via ectoparasites, some zoonotic – do not slack on it.

Dogs once lived in groups and inevitably get parasites; common external ones are fleas and ticks, both zoonotic. When a dog keeps scratching and biting its coat,

sand-like stuff in the coat means fleas. Flea bites easily cause skin disease – dermatitis, fungus, ear mites, unexplained itching. A tick, once attached, sucks blood madly, swelling over a hundred times in one night.

Tick infection can cause severe anemia, even death in many cases – so external deworming is a must.

External dewormers vary. Do not use combined ones on a puppy unless necessary – side effects. Start combined at about 4 months when resistance is stronger. For puppies use a single product like Frontline, per label, never overdose.