[Dailydrool] Fw: Heartworm

[Jim and Cassandra Vance]

Hello,

We've long been Basset Hound rescue folks, most recently fostering, etc. for MABR.  We recently fostered, then wound up adopting, a heartworm positive Basset who we named Hamilton Ackerman fog(fig)horn.

We live in the Northeast so we have very limited exposure to heartworm and Hamilton is our first HW positive dog.  We have opted to NOT do the fast kill method but rather a weekly dose of heartgard coupled with doxycycline.  Our reasons are that Ham has never been crate trained and is very ornery when confined.  He is 6"ish".  He currently displays no coughing, fatigue, etc.  so we beleive his heartworm disease is at the lowest state.  Xray's show his heart is within normal limits with a slight right side enlargement.

My questions are two fold - how many of you have treated your Bassets on this slow kill method?  From what I understand the heartgard prevents the eggs from turning into worms and the worms in his heart will eventually die in their own life cylce.  Therefore he still has worms in his heart (BAD).

Second, he experienced lethargy yesterday, is this common with Heartworm positive dogs?  We immediately took him to our vet but again, we live in an area where our vets do not see very many HW positive dogs so there hands on experience is very limited.

Thanks for all the advice.

Cassandra, Jim, Hamilton and all the other Bassets at our house!!


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