We are interested in adopting a dog from our local shelter. We have been informed that the dog is “low heartworm positive.” The shelter advocates using heartgard as the sole treatment in cases like this. I am getting mixed responses from people about the risk we would be taking by adopting the dog. I have heard that just using the heartgard is safer but has its own risks on the dog’s health. We recently lost a very loved dog to cancer and I guess I am unsure about taking on a new dog with potential health problems. Thanks.

The best answer is by :
Jenn :
You would be giving the dog heartguard anyway as a preventative… so I don’t really see what the risks would be.
That said…Heartguard doesn’t kill the adult worms just the larva in the bloodstream so it keeps new adult worms from growing in the heart. If there is already heart damage then the dog will have a shorter life… but if the damage is minimal then the dog could have a pretty normal life span.

I would talk to your vet… they might be able to tell you more about the risks.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 at 10:54 am and is filed under Revolution. 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.