Read a depressing heartworm story in "Your Dog" Ju

[Mary Plummer]

Hello all,

If I seem to get all hot under the collar about heartworm, I guess it's because I do; after Mr. Blue's case, I guess I'm super-alert to stories about it, and issues around dog owners' responsibilities to prevent it. It's such a preventable, and serious problem. The story is called "Heartworm's Increasing Threat." I guess the 3 top states for canine heartworm are Texas, Florida and Louisiana. The article mentioned how it exists in all states, however, in part because of people travelling with infected dogs. It also mentioned the problem of stray dogs with heartworm. What was really depressing to me is the stats about how many owners give preventative: according to a poll of 18,000 vet clinics, use of preventative fell from only 66% in 1998 to 55% in 2001! I DO NOT understand this; do owners just feel their dogs won't get it, or are they feeling like they can't afford the medicine, or don't want to give their dog "poison" every month (someone of a more "homeopathic" bent said this once). I suspect some of these people have never seen a HW+ dog tiring out sooner that it should, or coughing. It just gets me mad, and I hope you don't mind that I vented a bit here.

[TheSkeptic]

I agree 100%. You mentioned the two main factors in the drop in usage.

A: Ecconomics. -- They are pretty pricy and with budgets tightning a lot with the lousy economy, people are cutting back on many things they consider "luxuries." This includs both the pets and their care.

B: A stupid distrust of anything that is put out by big drug companies along with an unreasonable faith in untested remedies is also at work. They are afraid to put effective remedies to use because they are so afraid of the side affects which only occur in a very small percentage of the population. I am at a lose to understand their reasoning in this matter. (Actually it is more a case of a lack of reasoning ability IMHO.)

[momPaws]

If I wasn't convinced of their worth (which I am) I would have been the day I saw a family at the vet's. They were told that their dog was VERY ill with heartworms and the woman started yelling at her husband- "I told you so- I told you we had to get those pills"- they were all crying and I wanted to cry for them..very sad. It sounded like the dog would have to be put down. Aful chance to take for really not that much money per month.

[oconnorjoy]

Mary...thanks for alerting me to this...I will speak with my vet when Bamm Bamm goes in for his next vacinations. The last vet I saw said that they don't give that medication to dogs in this area. (Alberta, Canada) Does anyone know if this is right?

[davet]

while down there we examined every dog for HW and found a good percentage of them had it,,treatment was 14 days of IV arsenical type compound....which if you missed the vein, all hell would happen....anyway when i started paarctice in Philly, i still checked and found a few cases...Called the Univ. of Penn vet school and they told me i better check again cause they are not in Pa.which i did and they were there. sent a blood sample to Penn and they found them tooo-surprise--anyway they started checking then and sure enough Pennsylvania had HW...so they started checking every dog then and found a fair amount...back then we checked by looking at a slide and seeing them wiggle or ran a hematocrit and saw them wiggle in the buffy coat....long time ago.

[davet]

nm

[BoxerTom]

B: A stupid distrust of anything that is put out by big drug companies along with an unreasonable faith in untested remedies is also at work. They are afraid to put effective remedies to use because they are so afraid of the side affects which only occur in a very small percentage of the population. I am at a lose to understand their reasoning in this matter. (Actually it is more a case of a lack of reasoning ability IMHO.)

Lack of reasoning hits the nail on the head. Same "logic" used by anti-vaccination people who'd rather see millions of children die of disease rather than a few die from side-effects of the vaccines. Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.