By Carl Gist - ONLYforPETLOVERS District of Columbia

Pet owners everywhere are jumping for joy because spring is finally around the corner. For pets and owners alike who love the outdoors, every day is Saturday in the spring. Unfortunately, with the arrival of the glorious days of fun in the sun, comes the influx of pests and parasites and no pet owner has to battle these little buggers more than dog owners.

The most popular parasites that owners look to protect their dogs against are fleas and ticks. However, there is a deadlier parasite that pet parents often overlook. The parasite in question? Heartworms.

Heartworms are long, thin and live in the blood vessels and hearts of infected dogs. As heartworms grow, they injure the lungs, the arteries of the lungs and the heart of their host. The culprit that spreads this parasite from dog to dog is actually one of the most numerous insects of summer: the pesky mosquito.

Mosquitoes will bite a dog infected with heartworm, ingest some of the microscopic heartworm offspring and then, after a couple of weeks, pass these onto another dog. Inside the dog, the heartworms can grow rapidly, often exceeding a foot in length.

Heartworms are prevalent in most parts of the United States. Because heartworms can’t spread without mosquitoes, the highest rates of infections are most commonly found in subtropical climates like those of the southeastern United States, the Gulf States and Hawaii. Nevertheless, heartworms are also found throughout the central and eastern United States, particularly near oceans, lakes and rivers.

According to Heartworm-prevention.com, typical dog heartworm symptoms are fatigue, cough, difficulty breathing, abnormal lung sounds, enlargement of the liver, temporary loss of consciousness due to poor blood flow to the brain, fluid accumulation in the abdominal cavity, abnormal heart sounds, and weight loss.

“The only way to truly diagnose whether your dog has heartworms is to have your veterinarian perform a blood test,” said Shawn Martin, the hospital manager at VCA Mac Arthur Animal Hospital in Washington, DC.

The two blood tests normally used at the VCA Mac Arthur Animal Hospital and other animal hospitals are a filtration test and an occult test. The filtration test determines whether heartworms are present in your pet's blood stream, and the occult test shows the presence of worms in the heart.

To effectively protect your pet from getting heartworms, dog owners should administer a once-monthly prescription treatment that is only available from your veterinarian.
James Lee, a lab technician at the Friendship Hospital for Animals in Washington DC, agrees. “The best way to prevent heartworms is by making monthly visits to your vet.”

In 2005, the American Heartworm Society (AHS) changed its previous recommendation of testing dogs for heartworms every 1 – 3 years, to recommending a yearly test, even for dogs that are already taking heartworm preventatives year around. AHS felt that annual testing was the best way to make certain that an infection is caught in enough time to effectively manage it.

If you are not certain about the danger of heartworms in your area, call your veterinarian. Most veterinarians follow the guidelines published by the American Heartworm Society. Visit the Heartworm Society Web site at http://www.heartwormsociety.org/.