Heartworms?????

[Nash]

After this weekend and a lengthly conservation with a vet tech who said that she had only heard on one or two cases of dogs getting heartworms, I got to thinking about who all on this board whos dog has gotten heart worms.

If you own a dog that has or had heartworms post up and also post what prevenative they were on.

Please do no post if you know somebody that fits this profile. Have them log on and post themselves.

My goal of this is to attempt to get some feed back from the sales reps of the three major heartworm prevenative manufactures. Heartguard, Interceptor and K-9 Advantage Multi.

[Nash]

I will be getting in touch with each of the people who responds to get specific information, age, breed, living conditions ect.

[goosebruce]

scream- 1.5 old, lives in house, never missed a hartguard. char- 2.0 years old, lives in house 1/3 of year, 2/3 in kennel, never missed a hartguard. juice 2.0 years old lives in kennel never missed a hartguard. narcan 2.5 - tested clean end of summer, been with me since dec, been on hartguard since, can't speak for certain between test & dec.

hartguard paid for char. juice didnt have 2 clean negatives before he became infected, even though he was tested when normal people test there dogs, and we didnt have enough bought in screams name, even though we had more than enough for our dogs the records werent exact.

[70 sprig]

Spook , got'em when he was 2 years old , never missed a heartguard . He was a kennel dog at that time . He's 'bout due to go back for another test and I'm skeered of what the results may be

[kaustin]

trey call me. I had one.

[skuna]

Ace did have until I started feeding Kumpi.

Now I have all dogs on it and have dropped all other preventative meds.

[T-Bone]

My next door neighbor asked me to add his choc lab to the list. pm me for details.

[Super-X]

Pepper - 2.5 y/o inside/outside dog - some time away at trainer's
heartgard plus.....while it was a "mild case" I'm thinking the treatment
was just as expensive. She has done well, though, running hard and
enjoying life!!

[stumpjumper]

Abby 2.5 yo lives inside when not at Steve's heartgard plus.

[Nash]

That is 9 this year, I know there is more..

[Warren]

So what you all are saying is HEARTGUARD SUCKS. Use ivomec you wont have any problems then. Sure heartguard may pay for treatment but a bottle of ivomec cost me 32 dollars and will last about 2-3 years.

[goosebruce]

no. there are postives on ivermetic as well. ronnie's jumper dog came up postive on it. there are postives on interceptor as well. most dogs are on hartguard so it only makes sense most postives would be as well.

personally, i think the tests are flawed. either skeeters have adapted, or the test is flawed... makes sense to me its the test. travis

[Greenhead22]

9 out of every 10 dogs that are tested for heartworms at one time or another will test positive if they are on heartguard or interceptor. I've had a vet tell me this many times before. If you slip up and do not give them the invermectin the exact time each month, then you will possibly get a positive test. I've never once seen one of my dogs or my dad's dogs test positive for heartworms when invermectin was used.

[gator]

9 out of every 10 dogs that are tested for heartworms at one time or another will test positive if they are on heartguard or interceptor. I've had a vet tell me this many times before. If you slip up and do not give them the invermectin the exact time each month, then you will possibly get a positive test. I've never once seen one of my dogs or my dad's dogs test positive for heartworms when invermectin was used.

the problem w/ this (at least in my uneducated opinion) is the sample size....

9 outta 10 dogs are on either heartguard or interceptor (granted the majority of those are on heartguard i'd imagine)......i can't fill up the number of fingers on my hands w/ people i have an ACTUAL knowledge of using straight ivermectin.

basically what i'm saying is that when you take the number of heartguard pets in the south (we'll use 1 million) and the number of straight iver (say, 1/10th that), it stands to reason, given a number of variants that you could/may/might see more dogs on heartguard/interceptor testing positive.

i've asked my vet and a few others their opinions b/c quite frankly, heartworms scares the crap outta me......w/out fail, they've stated that they see no reason to change.

now, does that make the vets i talked to smarter or dumber than jeff's??? no, it makes them have a different opinion, and honestly, ALL this is at this point is conjecture and opinion.

i've got 2 at my house that have been on heartguard since day one.......documented on paper and computers each time i pick up meds.....in almost 6 yrs gauge has never missed a dose, trapper the same.

maybe i'm lucky, and if they come up positive, i'll do what i can to get some help from the company.

so, realistically, there's no way of knowing what's going on.......and, the best you can do, is the best you can do.

i suppose it's like my old college coach used to tell me.............control the controllables, meaning, take care of what you can and let the chips fall.

gator

[DrakeDemon]

I have one that has tested positive that was about 3 years ago and he was on HeartGuard. Treated him and now he is clear so far. I now give all of mine just straight IVO.

That might not be the right thing to do but..... like Travis said earlier I think the skeeters have adapted or something. I know of several that has went through this treatment and once I got another new pup after my oldest (9) got diagnosed /treated I just decided to try the straight ivo and see what happens. I give this every 21 days.

Like I say don't know if it is working, haven't had any pos. sighns or test yet. Just chancing it and gonna see what happens.