Heartworms in dogs can only be passed on by an infected mosquito. That is why the best prevention with this kind of disease is to make sure that your home and backyard is always clean to reduce your dog’s exposure to mosquitos. Aside from maintaining a clean and tidy place, there are also other ways on how you can prevent your dogs from getting heartworms. The best program for prevention of heartworm infection includes using preventives and performing routine heartworm testing to avoid the possibility of doing any treatment of heartworms in dogs.

The first step in preventing a heartworm in dogs is through blood testing. Your vet will perform the test with a few drops of your dog’s blood. Heartworm testing can only be performed on adult dogs because puppies do not require a heartworm test yet. This is because it will take six months after exposure for heartworms to be determined on a test. Every veterinarian will have their own recommendation on what age to start testing so it would depend on your vet’s advice. Preventive testing can be done every year to secure that your dog is free from this deadly disease.

Today, there are actually many kinds of medications that you can use to prevent heartworms in your pet dogs. This is a prescription product that you can buy from a licensed veterinarian. So always consult your vet on what is the best preventive medication that you can use for your dog. But keep in mind that whatever product you use, you will have to give it on a monthly basis. So make sure that you properly include this on your schedule. This is because if you fail to give a preventive medication to your pet on its specific schedule, you only risk him of getting infected easily.

Moreover, your dog should also be tested for heartworm if you are going to switch from one preventive product to another. In these situations, there are specific time periods at which the pet should be retested to ensure that your pet is protected.