Does my indoor dog still need Bordetella and yearly heartworm tests?

Heart worms are transmitted by mosquitoes. Since it is impossible to keep mosquitoes out of the house, your dogs can be infected even if they never go outside. So this is why it is important to do heart worm prevention. Your dogs will need to have heart worm tests done before they can get prescription heart worm medication.

Yes, if you live in an area with mosquitos. Heartworms are spread by mosquitoes, not by dog to dog contact. The mosquito injects larva into the blood when they bite the dog and over six months they grow into adult heartworms that live in the heart and surrounding blood vessels. Infected dogs have many worms in their heart and they eventually die of heart failure if not treated. The treatment is expensive and can be hard on the dog. Heartworm prevention is given monthly for life and protects your dog from heartworms and intestinal parasites. There are many different safe products some that include flea prevention also. Please talk with your veterinarian about getting prevention for Sophie soon. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to help you care for Sophie.

Here is a link that you may find helpful. https://www.aaha.org/guidelines/canine_vaccination_guidelines.aspx Typically we booster puppies, then they get a booster a year later, and then every 3 years. This is typically for rabies and distemper-parvo. But different counties/states may have their own rules regarding rabies as it is required by law. A titer for distemper-parvo can also be performed instead of just routine vaccination. Lepto and bordetella are based on the pets risk and not core vaccines. Dogs that are on heartworm prevention do not need to be dewormed unless they have tapeworms or another parasite is suspected. I hope this helps and thank you for using PetCoach!

Yes. Heartworm preventive medications work by intermittently killing the heartworm larvae that may have been transmitted to your dog by infected mosquitoes. As a result, [heartworm preventives](https://www.petcoach.co/article/3-common-types-of-heartworm-prevention) are killing larvae that may have infected a dog in the previous two months. Without the consistent administration of heartworm preventive medications, heartworm larvae can mature and cause serious signs of disease. In order to avoid this serious and life-threatening infection, it is crucial to give your dog [heartworm preventive medication](https://www.petcoach.co/article/should-i-stop-giving-my-pet-preventative-medication-in-the-winter) consistently year-round. ### Interceptor Plus is a trademark of Elanco or its affiliates.

If he has always been on it and hasn't missed any doses, then he should be fine to continue with the prevention. Now, that being said, no prevention is 100% effective so the reason we test every year is to check and make sure there was no break-though issues with the product. If a dog has heartworm disease there is a chance the prevention could cause a medical problem. In this case, I think the benefit of him taking the heartworm prevention outweighs the very tiny risk that he could be positive and have a reaction to the medication. Hope this helps. If you have more questions you can always opt for a private consultation where we can chat back and forth. That way you can ask as many questions as you'd like. Best wishes!

Heart worms can be detected through a blood test that can be done at a veterinarian’s office. Heart worms are transmitted by mosquitoes...a mosquito harboring a life stage of the heartworm will transmit it to a dog by biting it. It is not passed from dog to dog through casual contact. Heartworm disease is easily prevented, so if your veterinarian can test your dog and he is negative....there are a number of heartworm preventative products available through your veterinarian. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach

If heartworm is a problem in your area, which is may be considering the mosquitos that carry it have been found in your country according to the paper I gave you earlier, she should be protected against it regardless if she is showing signs or not. A dog can have heartworm without showing signs, and the only way to know for sure if to have a blood test done on her. Even if it's negative, you can't prevent mosquitos from biting her, so she should be protected against it. Heartworm is fatal without treatment, and it can still be fatal even with treatment if the infection is severe enough. I'm glad to hear Bella may be getting spayed this spring! I remember from earlier questions you were debating having it done. Before getting spayed, you can have routine blood tests and a urinalysis done on her. That tells the vet who her organs are functioning, and gives an anesthetic risk assessment for the surgery. An anesthetic risk assessment lets the vet know how she will likely handle being under anesthesia. As with any surgery, as we've talked about before, there is always a risk, but as long as Bella is healthy, that risk is quite small :-)