Just found out my dog has heartworms

Well, due to my negligence - one of my dogs (Sammy) has heartworms. I'm so aggrivated with myself! Ugh! Anyway - the vet quoted me about $400 for the treatment. Is this pretty average? Also, I want to have him neutered. Should this be done before or after the h.w. treatment? I plan to discuss this further with our vet, but I thought I'd get some opinions/advice on here too. Thanks in advance. By the way - we've had all our other dogs to the vet and are all h.w. negative and on preventative.

 

Amanda: I'm really sad to hear this. I've never come across anyone in the vet clinic or personally whos dog had H.W. $400 doesn't sound out of the norm. This is a serious thing. I'm assumming it's in the earlier stages. It's usually quite expensive when advanced. Don't delay. If untreated, it can kill. Good luck to you and Sammy. Let us know how everything turns out.

 

We're definitely going to get him treated soon. I'm going to call the vet either tomorrow or Sunday. I plan to ask him if it would be wise to neuter Sammy before the treatment. I would normally wait without hesitation (on the neutering), but both of my females are about to come into heat, and I figure that if he's neutered it will be less stressful while he's being treated and recovering from this. I guess I just need to get together with my vet and figure out which would be better for Sammy - A) getting treated sooner, but possibly being stressed because of the girls being in heat or B) being neutered first and therefor not being stressed by the females in heat, but having to wait a little longer for H.W. treatment. About how long would recovery time be for neutering an adult APBT (4 years old in October)?

 

I would definately get the heartworm treatment done first! Neutering is no big medical issure. It's done one day, and the next they're back to normal. H.W. treatment is a little more precarious. There are some medical risk. Your dog is basically being "Poisoned" to get rid of them. After he has his H.W. treatment, then consult your vet about the neuter. Please don't delay with the H.W. treatment. It's so serious. If a H.W test comes up possitive, the presence of the H.W. is usually 7 Mo. before it's detectable. So Sammy has had the H.W. for at least 7 Mo. Let me know how everything goes. I've never talked with anyone whos dog had heartworm. Hope everything goes well!!!

 

Hi SpencersPits: My neighbor is the Coordinator for Brittany Rescue...She has had two dogs go through HW treatment. $400 without any type of discount is about the norm! My neighbor gets a rescue discount so she didn't have to pay the full amount...plus I am not sure about the difference between here (NC) and you....I think hers was actually around $350 without the discount. Also, one of her rescues was neutered during HW treatment. Poor guy actually had to have a leg amputated, HW treatment and neutered all around the same time!!!! He was pitiful! He is such a happy dog now! Anyway, I would talk with your vet about getting the HW treatment started and then getting him neutered after the first treatment. As far as him being stressed...I wouldn't think that would make a difference. The main thing is keeping the dog calm while undergoing HW treatment. You have to keep the dog very calm for quite a while so the worms don't unhook themselves and go to a lung and kill the dog! The first 6 weeks are very important in keeping the dog calm...crate pretty much all the time except meal time, potty time and very supervised CALM play for about 5 minutes at a time! Yep, it's that particular! Good luck with Sammy! Get him all healthy again!!

 

Think it should be done afterward. anestesia is already a serious thing, so is heartworms, if the heart is already working xtra hard it probably can't take being put under and comprimised. When I was in the vet last time and overheard the vet and an older man who's female has heartworms and he wants her spayed it was $500 to treat and the spaying had to be done after the heartworm problem was taken care of.

 

sorry to hear about sammy. heartworms is such a preventable illness that it disgusts me when a dog comes up positive for it.

anyway, i would hold off on the neuter until he has been treated -- like zenasmom said, you've got to keep the dog VERY calm while being treated or else you risk blood clots and the like. we just had a dog at the shelter pass away due to a mild case of heartworms we were treating and have just had a new dog test positive for a very bad case. ugh, like i said it just infuriates me.

since you are worried about him getting stressed when your females go into heat -- why not just spay them?? why do you have so many dogs that haven't been fixed anyway?

 

Thank you for all your replies. I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on how Sammy does. As for why I have so many unfixed dogs - it is because I breed them and plan to show them in the near future. I do not plan to breed Sammy anymore or show him, so I'm getting him neutered.

 

perhaps you should reconsider breeding -- it sounds as if you have too much going on already if you are forgeting to give heartworm prevention. i think others would agree that it takes a very responsible person to breed for the betterment of a breed -- if those are your intentions. are you sure you have what it takes?

 

Amanda: After your post, it scared the heck out of me! Reese just went in and got his ProHeart injection with his physical. Grace hasn't had it because she wasn't old enough when she had her initial vaccination. Instead they gave her the HeartGuard which they take by mouth. Well, I didn't give it because I really thought the chances of dogs getting H.W. was slim. The Vets I worked with said they only saw one case in 10yrs. They actually had to have a clinic in N.Y. send them an infected heart so we could see what it looked like. I always thought the other vaccinations were the important ones. Anyway, I marched right off to Banfield and made an appointment for Grace for Tues. If anything, your post probably opened a lot of eyes as far as H.W. I THANK YOU! Hope Sammy pulls through this o.k. Don't feel bad, it could have happened to a lot of us people.

 

Well, if something good comes out of this by making people more aware of HWs, then at least there's that. As for why he was not on preventative - he had his last dose in September, and I thought he'd be okay through the winter. He has been an inside dog since August, and with it getting cold, I didn't expect the mosquitoes to be bothering him. And from what I can remember, the mosquitoes were not bad at all last season. Anyway - I know that is not a good reason - heck there is no good reason for him to be off preventative - but that is why. I have certainly learned my lesson - the hard way unfortunately. Well, I didn't get a chance to talk to the vet today (I just got home a few minutes ago). I'm going to talk to him tomorrow to get everything set up. I'll be sure to keep everyone posted. Thank you for all your support and advise.

 

I am very sorry to hear about your bad news.
Your dog most likely already had heartworms when you were treating him back in Sept. Dogs pick up heartworms in the summer/warm months from mosquitos.
Heartworms are very stressful on a dog and the treatments to rid them are not only expensive but can be just as deadly as the heartworms themselves.
My husband breeds beagles and months ago he purchased a female beagle from someone he knew, the dog came from champion bloodlines and was a seasoned hunter with great recommendations the only problem which we did not know at the time was the dog had never been treated EVER! For heartworms and was in fact positive for heartworms. My husband took the dog in to get her yearly shots and checkup but however did not get bloodwork done because having bought the dog from such a reputable dog man he assumed everything was fine and that she had been treated all along for heartworms, so he began giving her prevention given to him by our vet. A couple months later she came into heat and was bred everything was going great she went in to have an ultrasound and we found out she had six puppies and was told everything looked good then in her 58th day of pregnancy she started preterm labor due to stress which we later found out was brought on due to heartworms.
She ended up having to have a C-section done and that is when we found out she was positive for heartworms. Lulu did not make it through the C-section and 3 days later all 6 puppies had died as well. And on top of that we had a $1200 vet bill. All because of assumptions on our part and neglect of her previous owner. Needless to say our lesson was learned the hard way.

 

Amanda: Did you get Sammy to the Vet yet? If so, what did they say? I've been thinking about poor Sammy. :cry:

 

Most vets won't do any kind of sugery (unless life threatening) on a dog that has heart worms no matter what the stage is.

I would have him treated first, wait abut 3 months to let him fully recover, then have it done.

Good luck.
We had a dog when I was younger that had preventative every month (my grandmother was really precise about EVERYTHING) she was a chow if that makes a diffrence, my aunt inported her from Bejing,China as a gift for my grandparents) Well, She ended up dieing of heartworms. It shocked us to dis belief. But when the necropsy was done, her heart was almost unrecognizable. It was awful. Like a bowl of spagetti noodles was stuffed into her heart.

So the lesson here, is have them checked annualy for heartworms, even if they are on scedual with preventatives!

 

Hi. I had him scheduled to go in this Friday, but now I have to work, so we will be taking him in on Sunday. I'll let everyone know how he is doing after we take him in Sunday. I know I'll be a nervous wreck. I just hope everything goes okay. Wish us luck.

 

Well, we dropped Sammy off this morning. (We were able to get him in today instead of tomorrow.) He should have already had his first shot. They will give him his other one tomorrow morning. We went and bought him a crate today. (He was our spoiled dog who had a love seat all to himself!) The vet tech said if all goes well we should be able to bring him home tomorrow evening. I'm going to call the vets' office later today to see how he's doing. After he comes home, my husband and I are going to get a real workout - we live on the 2nd floor of our apartment buliding, and they said that going up and down the stairs will be too much exertion for him. So, we get to carry a 60-65 lb dog up and down the steps 3 times a day. We don't mind, of course. I just hope he'll do okay. I'll try to post again after he's home to let everyone know how he's doing. One of the vet techs said she has an AB that she rescued that had HWs. She said he pulled through just fine. Hopefully Sammy will do just as well. Thanks to everyone for your support.

 

Please keep us posted. I will say a prayer for Sammy!! Im sure he will be fine.

Megan

 

Well, we brought Sammy home tonight. The vet said that he had been doing great - no signs of complications. He seems to have high hopes because of "how young he is" and "how healthy he is". He also commented on what a good dog Sammy was. He said something along the lines of: 'I thought he was going to be a handful when we first got him, but when we put him in the kennel he just layed right down.' Not really sure why he thought Sammy would be a handful. Maybe because of his breed. Maybe because he gets pretty excited around strange dogs. Either way - it made me feel good to hear him say what a good dog Sammy is. Way to go Sammy! :y_the_best: Anyway - he's going to have to be crated pretty much all the time (except for potty breaks). The vet thought (just like I did) that having the 2 females in heat at the same time might be too much for Sammy. He even suggested boarding him. He also said to use common sense - ya know - if he's getting worked up do something about it. However, he's not paid one bit of attention to the girls. Truth be told - even before the HW treatment - he got more excited at feeding time than he did over the girls in heat. If it does seem to be bothering him he can stay at our friend's house for the month. The vet said that the 1st 2 weeks are the most important. Anyway - sorry for babbling. I'm just glad to have Sammy back. And I'm glad he's not showing any signs of complications. He just seems a tad more mellow than usual. The vet said to expect that. Especially seeing as how he just had the treatment yesterday morning and this morning. Well - again, thanks to everyone for their advice, kind words, and comfort. I will try to give updates every so often.

 

I am glad to hear Sammy is doing well. Keep us posted on how he's doing

 

What a wonderful Mother's Day present. Sounds like good news all the way. I'm so glad for you and Sammy.