When it comes to keeping your dog healthy, products like Heartgard for dogs, are essential for preventing a devastating disease that is too common, which is heart worms. Heartgard Plus also kills hookworms and round worms, all of which can have terrible consequences to your dog's health and vitality.

Heart worm is a parasite that is given to your dog, or other mammals like coyote, fox, deer, rabbit, cats and even under very rare cases humans. Heart worm is named this because of the adult stages of life for the parasite occur in the right ventricle of the heart where they can live for years, which will result in serious disease.

The heart worm goes through a couple stages of life. A mosquito has to take blood from the stream of an animal that has been infected with heart worm. Depending on the temperature, the heart worm then goes through a growing stage and is then deposited in another mammal when the infected mosquito feeds. The parasite then goes through another growing stage under the skin where there is an infection from the bite. Between 45 to 60 days after infection the heart worm migrates to the chest muscles and then in another week or two the worm moves into the bloodstream and is carried where it lives for the rest of its life in the pulmonary artery. It then reproduces and baby heart worms are released into the bloodstream where they wait for up to two years for a mosquito to suck them out to infect another host. A mature heart worm can grow up to anywhere between 6 and 12 inches long.

The symptoms of heart worm are not readily apparent, usually not until the disease has become very serious. The infected dog may start to cough and as the disease progresses it will have trouble breathing, lose its appetite, lose weight, and make strange lung and heart sounds. If it is not treated then it could lead to death. The most common test that a vet would do would be a blood test but heart worms can also be detected with ultrasound and x-ray.

The easiest way to avoid having your dog go through this traumatic experience is preventative medicine. While Heartgard for dogs is a preventative medicine it will not kill adult heart worms already living in your dog. Heartgard plus chewables only need to be taken once a month to prevent your dog from being a host to heart and hook worms.

If you have a dog and do live in a warm climate it would be a smart idea to look into preventative medicine like Heartgard for dogs to make sure that your dog does not become a host.