Have you dewormed your dog lately?

I've been telling you about my neighbor and his new puppy... He adopted her from the local shelter and was so careful about following instructions: getting her there for her follow-up shots, and taking her to the vet to be spayed. But they forgot to mention that they had not dewormed that puppy!

So, yesterday he called in a panic - the puppy had thrown up in her crate over night and there were these huge worms! Of course the vet would be closed on Sunday - what should he do!

I told him he should come over, because I had some dewormer paste he could give her.

When he got here he was waving a sandwich baggie containing worms - just so we could see the things and make sure they really were roundworms. I won't repeat what my husband said when he told him to get those things out of his face.

Anyway, we went on line and looked up roundworms, and that's what they were - and that's what the paste I had was made to treat. But we did learn something - and that is that humans can get roundworms too!

Here's the site where we got our information.

The site and my tube of wormer did disagree on the length of time between doses - so we decided she should have 3, two weeks apart, to get rid of all the undeveloped eggs as they hatched.

As an added note: That site is there to promote a topical flea and worm treatment - and those may be fine for some dogs. Just be aware that some are allergic.

Two years ago the deer had fleas - and since my dogs run around in the same meadow as deer, they got fleas. The vet sold me a topical flea killer, which was fine for two and misery for one. The dose lasts a month, and that poor dog didn't stop scratching for the full month. He was actually getting raw and bloody spots just from the scratching. As far as itching went, he was more miserable from the medicine than he had been from the fleas.

If they ever pick up fleas again, I'll search for a natural alternative.