Parasites - Prevention is better than cure and how to control them
Intestinal Worming:
Intestinal worms are those that will inhabit the digestive tract of your animal, including round worms, hook worms, tape worms etc such worms can be transferred to humans and therefore it is very important to regularly worm your dog at the intervals recommended below.
There are a number of brands on the market, be sure to read the packaging to ensure the wormer you have selected does all worm type, including the nasty tapeworms. Cheaper wormers sometimes only irradicate round worms and the like. Reliable brands include Excelpet, Drontal, Valueheart.
Worm every 2 weeks until 12 weeks of age, then every month till 6 months old, thereafter every 3 months for the rest of the animals life.
Flea’s can also transfer some types of worms such as tapeworms so its very important to keep your bulldog free of fleas.
Flea Treatments:
Flea treatments come in a variety of dosage forms including tablets, liquids (placed on the back of the neck), chewables etc.
We have found the most effective to be Frontline, which is a monthly treatment that simply goes on the back of your dogs neck, protecting him from fleas for one month. The cost is approx. $70 for 6 months, its worth it.
Heart Worms:
Heart worm is transferred from an infected dog via mosquitos to your dog. This infection is extremely dangerous and therefore it is of upmost importance that you prevent its transfer by regular administration of heartworm preventatives.
Once again heart worm prevention is also available in a number of dosage forms including, intramuscular injection (once yearly), daily tablets (not recommended), and monthly tablets (reliable). We give our dogs monthly heart worm tablets, we have found these to be safe and reliable.
Combination Products:
There are available a number of products which do some and one product that does all worms, fleas, mites etc. We cannot comment on the effectiveness of these products as we haven’t used them on our dogs, however studies have shown that they provide a reasonable level of protection for your dog.
Some helpful links:
http://frontline.us.merial.com/home/
http://www.revolutionpet.com/default.html