My pets have worms. How can I protect my family from getting them?

Oh no. This is a nuisance to deal with for sure. Tapeworms are contagious to people, but it would require ingesting (eating) a live worm to become infective. As long as you clean up the feces and use good hygiene (washing your hands and avoid putting hands in the mouth after touching your pet or any live worms), then you are less likely to infest yourself. Clean up the poop quickly and don’t let your pet around other dogs or cats to avoid transmission until you can get Coco treated. Best wishes and don’t forget to also get Coco on a good flea preventative (ie Bravecto, Nexgard, Simparica, Vectra etc) at your vet to avoid further infection with tapeworms. Take care.

Tapeworms need to go into a secondary host to spread. That means that cats get them from eating rodents and fleas, and you, your family and the other cats and dogs can't get them from being exposed to the segments. Please get Mr. Kitty treated for tapeworms and use a flea prevention product on all the animals to prevent them getting tapeworms from eating fleas. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to help you get answers to your veterinary questions.

I would make sure that your cats and your puppy are both up to date on their deworming treatments. If they aren't, you will need to get treatments for them from the vet. As for cleaning the house, I would shampoo the carpets, and scrub any hardwood floors.

Oh no. Well he good news is that Tapeworms are only infective if they are alive and wiggling around. Once that are dead they are no longer infective. Good hygiene practices (washing hands) is generally enough to avoid being infected with them because they have to be digested for transmission.

Hi, thanks for using PetCoach! Your children would have to get Max's stool in their mouths or mucous membranes. As long as you pick up his stool and cleaning up after any accidents that usually prevents any infections in children. Kids can also get it from eating contaminated dirt. They should always wear shoes and sand boxes should be covered to prevent cats from using it as a litter box. I hope this helps! https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxocariasis/gen_info/faqs.html

I'm assuming you mean your cat has intestinal worms. That requires a deworming treatment which you can get OTC, and I recommend getting him Panacur. It's available at a pet store. He will need another deworming treatment two weeks after the first one to kill all the worms. Make sure you wash your hands thoroughly after handing him and cleaning his litter box to prevent you from getting them. In terms of sleeping with you, it's fine for him to sleep with you as you can only get the worms if you accidentally ingested contaminated feces. If you are talking about fleas, I can give you a flea treatment program for him. First, I would give him Capstar. It's a one time pill that starts killing fleas within 30 minutes. Then follow up with a spot on treatment, such as Advantage or Revolution. This is a treatment that has to be used once a month. You will also have to disinfect the environment. Wash his bedding in hot soapy water, and vacuum the furniture and carpet surfaces. You can use a spray to kill fleas in the house, such as Indorex, or a flea bomb would work well to kill the fleas in the home.

You should clear the litter tray as soon as possible after use and dispose or flush the feces to ensure he is not reinfested. It is the feces which is infectious so his a limited risk to you whilst letting him