Pug Health GuideUltimatePug.com’s Pug Health Guide

Get Straight Up Facts On Fleas, Ticks, Heartworm And Kennel Cough

The most widely accepted external parasite treatments currently available for pets are Frontline, Advantage, Revolution and Bio-Spot.

These well-known dog and cat flea treatments provide one month of solid protection.

Imidacloprid is the key ingredient in Advantage Flea that works to destroy the flea’s nervous system, rendering the flea paralyzed and quickly ending its life.

Within 12 hours of application, 98-100 percent of fleas are dead.

Brands such as Frontline flea and Advantage flea killers have nearly immediate results and long lasting protection.

Your pet should not be a victim of fleas when relief is readily available.

You just need to pick a good flea medicine for your pet’s current situation.

Ticks, also known as mites, are external parasites that feast on the blood of birds and mammals, and reptiles.

While there are 5 species of ticks in North America, the America dog tick is the most widely known.

The scary part is that ticks are only one step behind mosquitoes in transmitting diseases to people.

Everyone knows that Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness, but ticks also spread Rocky Mountain spotted fever, equine encephalitis, and ehrlichiosis.

They also spread diseases amongst livestock, as well as our beloved pets.

Another type of mite living in the Rocky Mountains is the wood tick.

Some common weapons to combat them are tick collars and anti-flea/tick shampoos.

For effective tick control, dogs should be checked in tick season (warm weather = more ticks) and if a tick is found, it should be removed entirely.

Part of the tick may be left in the wound, if you are not careful, thus increasing the likelihood of infection.

As opposed to tick-borne diseases, heartworm is mosquito-borne; the heartworm larvae are deposited by the mosquito in the new host.

The parasites enter multiple steps before reaching maturity.

When heart worms mature into adults, they make their way to feed off the blood in the heart.

This can cause symptoms including coughing, difficulty breathing, and ultimately heart failure.

No owner would like to see their pet die of this terrible parasitic disease, fortunately treatment is available if the disease is caught early enough.

Interceptor for dogs is one such treatment, which also tackles hookworms and ascarid infections.

Another common infection is kennel cough.

This is a very contagious strain of bronchitis that often spreads in places like kennels, where dogs are near many other dogs.

However, the infection can be treated with proper use of antibiotics, and it can even be prevented with vaccinating for canine adenovirus, distemper, parainfluenza, and bordetella.

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Dog Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.