Pet Parasite Prevention
Conveniently located in Fort Myers, FL, Indian Creek Pet Hospital proudly offers comprehensive pet parasite prevention services, providing a vital line of defense against a range of potentially harmful parasites that can affect beloved animal companions.
Pet Parasite Prevention in Fort Myers, FL
Pet Parasite Prevention
KEEPING YOUR PET HEALTHY INSIDE AND OUT!
Parasites are something that can affect almost every pet. It is essential for both your family and your pet to take the appropriate precautions to help prevent your pet from being infected by parasites like ticks, fleas, heartworm, and other internal and external parasites.
External Parasites
External parasites include fleas, ticks, mites, and lice. These parasites not only cause discomfort, scratching, and skin infections, but they can also transmit several serious diseases such as Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Anaplasmosis, Ehrlichiosis, Babesiosis, Tularemia, Typhus, Plague, Hemobartonellosis, Bartonellosis, and more. Fleas and ticks can cause pet itchiness, discomfort, and skin irritation. More importantly, these parasites act like hosts to more serious illnesses like Lyme Disease and other diseases that can result in cardiac conditions, joint problems, lameness, and neurological disorders.
Fleas are wingless insects that are capable of jumping to great heights. They are quite challenging and can live up to 100 days on their hosts and lay anywhere from 20 to 40 eggs per day.
Fleas prefer warm temperatures, making your pet an ideal host. To prevent fleas from infecting your pet, it’s essential to get them started right away on a flea prevention medication to prevent diseases such as bartonellosis and the spread of parasites such as tapeworms.
Ticks are a type of arachnid that spend most of their lives living off of their host. Ticks can lay thousands of eggs at one time and survive even in near-freezing temperatures. Compared to fleas, ticks are much more resilient and tougher to kill. Many potentially deadly diseases, such as Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Ehrlichiosis, and Anaplasmosis, are transmitted from ticks, so protecting your family pet against ticks is crucial.
At Indian Creek Pet Hospital, our pharmacy carries the best quality parasite control medicine to ensure that your pet is safe and healthy, and parasite-free at all times! Parasite preventatives can be taken orally or absorbed by your pet’s skin.
Internal Parasites
Intestinal parasites include four common worms and a few species of microscope protozoan. The common worms are roundworms, hookworms, whipworms, and tapeworms. Coccidia, toxoplasmosis, and giardia are a few varieties of protozoa. To ensure your pet is free of intestinal parasites, our veterinarians require stool samples and suggest preventatives to help combat the contraction of any intestinal worms. However, if your pet is found to have worms, then we will prescribe you the appropriate dewormer from our pharmacy.
Things that increase your pet’s risk of contracting intestinal parasites:
- Drinking unsanitary water
- Eating grass that is already infected with parasite eggs
- Eating their stool or the stool of other pets
- Interacting with other dogs already infected with a parasite
Heartworm Disease
Heartworm is a worm that attacks your pet’s heart and lungs. This condition is transmitted by mosquitos. As larvae, this worm is harmless. But once the larvae develop into an adult worm, it moves to the heart of your pet and can cause serious heart conditions and respiratory problems. At Indian Creek Pet Hospital, our veterinarians offer the best heartworm preventatives to keep your pet heartworm-free at all times! Heartworm preventatives can be taken orally or via an injection.
- AVMA: Heartworm Disease
Please call us at (239) 466-5555 today with any questions about our parasite prevention programs or to schedule an appointment with our veterinary team.