Worming your dogs and cats

To protect the health of your pet and your family it is essential that all pets are dewormed on a regular basis using an effective broad-spectrum deworming agent. A number of supermarket deworming products do not cover the full range of worms. You must ensure you use an allwormer product.

Always combine a deworming program with a flea control program.

It is rare for animal intestinal worms to be transmitted from animals to humans. However, children can pick up tapeworm by swallowing a flea infected with tapeworm larvae (fleas are intermediate hosts for the common tapeworm). Hookworms can infect human skin and roundworms can migrate to the eye and cause serious problems for people. Although these problems are rare, they can have devastating consequences. Deworming is important for the health and wellbeing of your pet and family.

Cats and Kittens 

Cats can be infected by a number of different types of worms. These include roundworms, hookworms, tapeworm. (Ringworm is in fact NOT a worm, but a fungal skin infection).

Your cat needs regular worm treatment – as a kitten it should be treated fortnightly until 12 weeks old, then as an adult, treated every 3 to 6 months.

Tapeworms are often seen as small “grains of rice” around the anal area. These worms cycle through fleas so are an indication that your cat is likely to need flea treatment.

Dogs and Puppies 

Because of the roundworm life cycle, puppies can be born already infected with roundworm. People can be infected with canine roundworm if there are poor hygiene practices when handling infected puppies. Puppies need to be treated with an appropriate worm treatment every 2 weeks until they are 12 weeks old, and then monthly until they are 6 months. From 6 months of age onwards we advise worming every 3-6 months.

Other worms such as hookworm, whipworm and tapeworm can also infect older puppies and dogs, so you need to choose worm treatments effective against these parasites when worming older puppies and dogs.