How often do you worm your dog, and why?

[TheLivelyCat]

How often do I need to worm my dog?
I understand that the guidelines are every 3 months on average, however my vets have recommended I do monthly due to my dogs lifestyle, hiking, mantrailing, our location beaches, woodlands, farms ect and breed (Labrador) as they are known scavengers, shes very much a town and country dog.
I have no issue worming monthly if she is high risk, but the vet was saying that over the counter wormers like drontal dont cover lung worm, and I will definitely need to cover her for that too.
So in total im looking at £24pm to cover both wormer and flea and tick prevention. Vet doesn't do pet plans ect, and private perception works out more expensive after paying for the perception.

Every 3 months with the tablet from the vet because it can kill them. Keep on top of the flea prevention though they don't normally get them but they can prevention is best if they get worms it can make them really sick.. Change your vet. I have vets for pets and the plan covers all flea and worming and jabs and check ups I think it's currently £17 per month. They have been a really good vets too.

I don't worm my dogs.

We are in Scotland and walk in woods, fields and farmland and on beaches. They are spaniels so also scavenge and regularly find dead sea birds to snack on.

The last time I discussed it with a vet, he said worms are rare in pet dogs and current advice is not to routinely treat, because of the drugs ending up in the environment and our water supplies.

You can send off fecal samples to a lab to look for presence of worms and their larvae which means you only treat if infected.

I don't routinely treat my two labs for worms or fleas.

They do normally end up getting worm treatment once or twice a year as we take them abroad and they have to be treated to return to the UK.

I don't think a lot of people realize that worming isn't preventative. It's just treating on the off chance they've picked them up

I don’t worm or flea mine. I’ve never seen evidence of either in the dog or the cats in over a decade.

Same as most pp. I don't worm her but send off poo samples every so often to get tested for worms. She's had them once in six years. Bought a wormer, Drontol, and it did work. But it was round worm not lung worm. They tell which worm eggs they have detected.
Lung worm does need a different wormer - maybe only vets sell that one but lung worm is fairly rare. They get it from slugs and snails and frogs. It's serious if they have it so I like to test but I don't worry about it too much.

She has natural stuff for fleas. Did get them once and it was a nightmare but she is very scared of the hoover. She had to have Bravacto from the vet.

I know you haven't asked about it but just to let you know many people don't give annual injections. Mine has had two lots and she won't get any more now. My vet - it's part of a chain and not shy to charge or treat - suggests 'annual' injections every three years. You can do titre testing too to check if they are covered.

Worm count every three months and only worm if the dog has worms.

I have only had to worm once dog in al the years of owning dogs.

Monthly worming has mega implications to the environment and the dogs health and is not needed and total waste of time and money if the dog does not have worms

Wormers do not prevent worms. They do nothing if your dog does not have worms. They kill the worms if you dog has worms. So worth checking first

Worm counts make more sense.

I do worm six monthly using Drontal or Panacur as we are amongst livestock.
Panacur is supposed to treat lungworm if given at half dosage over three days. It might not be as effective as the prescription meds, but certainly will be cheaper.

My cat gets treatment every 3 months. I have seen my cat with worms on more than one occasion before the worming treatment so whatever he gets up to outside (eating mice) he needs it.

I worm on a three monthly schedule as MonsterDog eats grass-with-snails, paddles in murky waters and is partial to local cat poo (which definitely has included worms at times).

Edited to clarify that dog does not eat tramps.

Every 3 months because that’s what the vet says

We do private prescription. Many suppliers will give you six months supply on one prescription which is why we opt for it. We pay £30 per prescription per dog as we have a few dogs that are on different strengths of flea/wormer/tick medication, It saves us £££ doing it this way.

and here lies the problem. Clients obviously take information from their vets as the right course of action.

However the BSVA themselves acknowledge that this is not the correct way forward. It is just taking a long time to travel down to the vets and clients due to lack of information from the vets. A quick google shows the BSVA views on this.

They recomend dealing with individual dog basis not a generic worm every month approach and to recommend the use of wormcounts. I have never been advised this by my vets. Always the blanket vet package that is monthly or 3 onthly depending on the medication used.

flea and worm treatment 3 monthly as advised by my vet. It’s covered in my pet plan

Same. I never do either. Don't want chemicals in or on my dog. In 50 years of having dogs, have never had either.

💰💰💰💰

Ha exactly. Vets would recommend doing it weekly if they could 😂

It is covered in your pet plan but your pet plan will not offer a lot else So basically you are giving your dog unnecessary medication that there is a high chance they dont need.

You may get discount of neutering and a free checkup but baskically the plan sells medication that your dog will probably never need.

Pet plans became a "thing" when independent vets were taken over by big companies. Fine for them to make money but the implications of over medication in veterinary medicine is having a huge impact on the environment.

I've never wormed our dog in the five years we've had her, and flea treated only once after an encounter with a hedgehog. We send off a sample to 'Wormcount' to check her parasites a couple of times a year, and they have never detected any parasites. We spend a lot of time in the country, and she is a lurcher who eats anything she sees. I am generally a pro-medicine person (for humans and animals!), but see no need to pump my dog full of harsh (and expensive) chemicals unnecessarily, so I would take the vet's advice with a pinch of salt here.

Edited to add that my vet has never recommended regular treatments for either flea or worming (and we see our vets a lot due to ongoing health issue) - but they are independent country-type vets and don't tend to push expensive treatments just because.

I don't flea or worm my dogs or my cats. I'm not keen on the idea of putting chemicals into them, would rather treat the issue if it actually happens.

Like many people, I wormed and de-flea'd my dog religiously when she was young but the treatments always made her ill with upset stomach. I haven't treated her for around 4 years now and she has never had worms or fleas which I would obviously treat if necessary. At her last health check, my vet asked how often she was treated and when I told her 'never' she accepted this without any concerns.

Amazing. Another vet bashing thread 🙄Would be lovely if we could have a thread about something to do with animal health without all the vet haters coming out.

Love how many people are ignoring that your dog's worms can infect other dogs - including puppies (and particularly those who are poorly bred and thus lack nutrients and are more likely to eat other dog's poo) - and result in serious complication, or in the worst case scenario, death. It's not about your dog. It's about helping protect other people's dogs.

Just seems like a decent thing to do, in my eyes. And it doesn't cost the world either...a few hundred quid a year. Nothing in the grand scheme of dog ownership.

This is not a vet bashing thread! It may be a corporate vet profit making issue.

It is very much a responsibility of dog owners to check their dogs for worm.

Ineresting the back lash from vets over medicating on this thread looks like peope dont protect their dogs at all!

Worm count totally protects your dogs. Does not wreckthe environment. Does not cause over resistance to the drugs which they have to get stronger and cause more issues to the environment and our dogs.

Vets could sell worm counts instead of pushing out unnecessary medication - why dont they especially as this is the recommend approach from BSVA?

Worm when taking the dog abroad. Once after he got a tapeworm (yuck!). He gets tick prevention solution a couple of times in the summer.

Not vet bashing at all. But it is a good idea to do a little research around what a vet recommends (after all, it wasn't long ago that Librela came with no side effects whatsoever and now that myth is being debunked). Often their advice is good but not always.