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Worming.

loveisokay

Well-known member
Last time I wormed my puppy, later that evening she had blood in her stools & proceeded to do for about a week. I phoned the vet & they said this was a normal reaction to worming.

So, I bought some more Dontral Plus for her because it has been a month now. She threw up yesterday but has eaten & been okay other wise. Her poo was looking a bit pinkish too - I put this down to her food, some of the kibble is red. Last time I trust the OH to buy dog food for me. Anyway, so I wormed her this morning (I was quite proud that I got her to take the pill) & just now she has quite a bit more blood than last time in her stools. Is it possible for the worming tablet to affect her within the hour??
 
How old is she ? Drontal Plus could be too strong.

When I took Joly for his 12 week vaccination, the young vet was going to prescribe the usual Drontal, as they normally change from puppy wormer at this age, but the experienced vet happened to be passing and recommended a couple more doses of puppy, as Joly was only a small dog. She said that the adult Drontal could be too purging for little ones and he was unlikely , at his age, to pick up tapeworm.
 
For all this can be a normal reaction to worming it is not an ideal one and my advice would be to try a different product designed specifically for puppies. There are different ingredients in different products and I would be discussing this with your vet or a different vet. Also ask if its best to worm with food if your baby has such a reaction ?
It is not something I would just live with until I had done some trial and error stuff with different products in the hope I would find one that was better suited to her gut ? Good luck with it.
 
I need to ask one of those questions, hoping no one is offended. Why do dog owners in the UK worm their dogs so often? Is it once a month or so? Just curious.
 
Hi There!

First of all this reaction does worry me, I have never had a dog passing blood after it has been wormed. Drontal Plus is in my opinion too strong for a 12 week old puppy. Drontal do a puppy liquid wormer which is far more suitable for a pup of her age, in fact I only use this on my dogs for the first year of their life.

Scouty, no offence taken! Worms can actually hibernate in a dogs gut, it is a well known fact that when pups are born they already have a worm burden of some sorts even if you have wormed their mother on day 1 of the season prior to her being mated (I strongly recommend this!) some wormers claim to be safe during the pregnancy but personnally I don't worm them at all when pregnant, so the little one's have a few "nasties" already when born.
Different wormers give different regimes, I like the Drontal wormer and they recommend worming at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 weeks of age! Don't forget to worm Mum at the same time as she is cleaning up after the pups so will pick up anything the pups pass! :grnyuk:
After 12 weeks you can then worm only every 3 months but be sure to have your dog weighed at the vets so that the correct dosage can be given.
There can be some very nasty things passed by a dog with worms in their poop that if it gets onto a small childs hands and then maybe rubbed around their eye area can cause blindness, not nice I am sure you will agree. My cuddle get their "ham sandwhich" :lol: every 3 months religously as I have 4 small children, plus having more dogs than most I also have a higher risk of things being passed through the cuddle very quickly.

The main reason for the 3 monthly worming is that this is how long the active ingredients last for inside the dogs body before needing topping up.

Having said all that, I know of loads of people who still do not worm their dogs routinely, and even more who bellieve that a product bought for £1.99 in the supermarket will be as effective as something their vet would prescribe!!

Hope that is of help??
 
She's just short of four months old. My vet said that she should be wormed every month until she was six months old, which is the advice I was following. She only had half the tablet too.

I suspect I will try the puppy stuff next time, since I really do not like this reaction even though she will be older then obviously).

I was keen to worm her this week as she was showing some signs that might be attributed to worms, plus the vet suggested that the last time she had blood in her stools could have been because of a "heavy load" & would need to be done in a month to make sure.

Apparently the worming can be done with or without food (I would think it impossible to give her without food).
 
Cathryn,

Yes, that was great information. When I first brought Scout home and took her to the vets she was given some worming meds. I haven't given her any since.

I do however, check her poop everyday. I know there a many, yucky things just waiting to harm our angels. I know dogs can get tapeworm from fleas (which I treat for) and Heartworms from mosquitos (which we have many, many and I treat for). I appreciate all the information and the time you took to answer.
 
I know people who feel very strongly about regular worming and attribute numerous problems to the existence of undiagnosed worms. There are those who regularly or semiregularly worm. And then there are those who rarely worm. There are arguments on all sides.

I am one of the latter who rarely worms, either my cats or dogs. Cats are all indoor cats and would rarely come across anything outside, while I collect the dogs' poops right after they do them and watch for signs of worms. I have some skepticism about the need for regular worming having grown up with dogs which were never wormed, in an era when no one wormed unless you actually saw one (or for puppies who were always wormed as they can be born with the worms already inside). I'd say our dogs and cats maybe were wormed 2-3 times in a lifetime. That was simply the norm -- people did not worm or use flea preparations all the time. We smetimes used flea collars but they would get ancient before anyone remembered to replace them. We never noticed any fleas...

Then an industry evolved that said you should worm every three months. There is strong advertising around doing this and I've read the brochures. It just confuses me how dogs and cats got along for decades without needing quarterly worming, but now need it. Worming does involve putting strong pesticides through an animal's system and I am just reluctant to do this. I don't have kids in the house or around the house either, I should add.

I always worm everyone when I've had fosters in the house though.

I never use flea preparations regularly either -- the dogs only seem to pick them up about once a year and I de-flea them then.

Not arguing there's a right or wrong approach -- that's just mine, for what it is worth!
 
I have to admit I follow Karlin's line. I wormed both of mine as pups, usually with the vet stuff. Now, I tend to worm only when there's a lot of scooting or biting at the rear end. This happened with Amber recently (now nearly 11 months) and I was starting to panic and think SM. I wormed her, and the all the scooting and biting disappeared almost instantly. HUGE sign or relief.

Ditto fleas. If there's a lot of scratching going on, I wash all their bedding, clean the floors, and give both dogs a bath AND I give the flea tablets. I prefer those since the stuff that you rub in makes me nervous. I can never get it on just right, and I worry about one dog licking the stuff off the other.
 
Here in Australia we have the same worming regimen as described by Cathryn. I've always followed that regimen, but interestingly enough in a book I recently read by Ian Billinghurst (an Aussie vet), he made the claim that with a healthy diet dogs don't need frequent worming. I admit I have not been game to forego the wormings for my dogs though. Back in the days when I knew nothing about nothing I purchased a puppy from a newspaper advert & when I got him home he was riddled with worms. I'll never forget the experience.
:grnyuk:
 
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