15.1 million pet owners in the United States do not currently use heartworm prevention. This is a horrible statistic. Heartworm disease can be deadly to dogs and cats, but is easy to prevent. Animal Doctors recommend starting puppies and kittens on monthly heartworm prevention as early as 6 weeks of age and continuing every month for the rest of their lives. In Texas, heartworm testing should be performed on every dog, every year. A comment that we routinely hear is: “My pet has never missed a dose of heartworm medicine, do I still really need to have him tested every year?” Absolutely. No preventatives are 100% effective 100% of the time. There are too many variables involved. If you give heartworm preventative medication to an unknowingly heartworm positive dog, serious problems and even death can occur! Heartworms are easily spread by mosquitoes that can infect your pet with one bite, and heartworm disease is devastating to those pets who acquire it. For our feline friends, it only takes 1 heartworm to be fatal.
Please have your pet tested annually and keep them on prevention for life. We now proudly recommend the Proheart 12 injection that provides year round protection from heartworm disease in dogs. We recommend Revolution Plus for our feline friends to prevent heartworms as well as a number of other parasites.