Symptoms of Canine Roundworm Infection
📝 Summary
Puppies get roundworm very often, usually because deworming is not done on schedule, and partly due to diet. Severe infection can be fatal, so owners must take it seriously. Here are the symptoms.
1 Symptoms of Canine Roundworm Infection
1. Roundworms mechanically irritate the small intestine, steal nutrition, and secrete toxins.
2. They are the thickest gut parasite and vary in number. They most severely irritate the intestine, causing catarrhal enteritis, mucosal damage, and bleeding. During hunger, fever, sudden diet change, or stress, worms become active and migrate via the lymph system into the stomach, bile duct, or pancreatic duct, causing vomiting, abdominal pain, and jaundice. Clumped worms can block the gut, cause intussusception, and even necrosis and perforation.
3. Migrating larvae damage the intestinal wall, lung capillaries, and alveoli, causing bloody stool, cough, and pneumonia.
4. Intestinal worms steal large amounts of nutrition, causing thinness, anemia, and malnutrition; their toxins poison organs and nerves, causing anemia, neurologic signs, and allergic reactions.
5. The dog wastes away, the conjunctiva pales, the coat loses luster, appetite is lost, and vomiting may contain worms; abdominal palpation may feel masses at intussusception borders. Intussusception or blockage worsens the general condition and stops defecation.
6. Worms in the lungs cause cough and fever; severe cases show pneumonia.
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