Hide the kids’ toys, tune up the carpet cleaner, get ready for some sleep deprivation… there’s a new dog in the house. Last night, the yet-to-be-named ("he who shall not be named" having been rejected by Heather) little yellow critter arrived. Meg (the existing dog) seems relatively content, or at least resigned. The cat… not so much, but he’s already established who’s the boss.

So, while I’m momentarily not trying to convince the puppy to pee outside, I’ll take this opportunity to hopefully practice what I preach and describe what we’re doing for things like vaccination, deworming and other infectious disease-related topics.

To start things off: What’s the deworming plan?

  • Roundworms (Toxocara canis) are the main concern in puppies. It’s generally a good idea to assume that a young puppy has roundworms, regardless of from where it came and how well cared for it was.
  • Canadian parasite treatment guidelines are to treat puppies with a drug that will kill Toxocara worms at 2, 4, 6 and 8 weeks of age, then monthly until 6 months of age. Our little guy is 9 weeks old and has already been treated a couple of times for roundworms, plus he’s had one treatment for coccidia (a different parasite that was found on a recent fecal exam).  He’ll get another dose of pyrantel pamoate in the next day or two, then monthly until he’s 6 months old. (If someone gets a puppy and it hasn’t been treated like this or its vaccination history isn’t known, it is recommended to give 3 treatments 2 weeks apart, then monthly until 6 months).
  • A fecal exam will be done on the puppy in the near future. It’s not an emergency since it won’t impact what I do at the moment in terms of treatment, but it’s good to see if there are any parasites that aren’t killed by the chosen dewormer (e.g. tapeworms) and to detect resistant parasites (i.e. Toxocara eggs still found in feces after appropriate treatment).
  • No flea treatment now since he doesn’t have any evidence of a flea infestation and it’s not very likely he’ll be exposed to fleas before the spring based on the current climate where we are.
  • No heartworm treatment until the spring either. The Canadian Parasitology Expert Panel (CPEP) recommentaion is for dogs to receive monthly heartworm preventive treatments beginning at a maximum of two months of age. So, I’m not really following that one, but given the time of year, the low prevalence of heartworm in the area he’s from and the fact that the puppy wouldn’t have had too much risk of mosquito exposure because of its age and indoor housing, the risk of heartworm exposure this season is very low.

More updates to come, and hopefully not too many descriptions of how to clean puppy feces off of various surfaces.