Health & Fitness
Why does my pet need a Heartworm test every year?
It is important to get your pet tested for heartworm once a year. If your pet has been exposed somehow early treatment is the best option to get rid of this horrible disease.
At Westgate Pet Clinic we use a SNAP 4DX test to test for heartworm infection in dogs. In addition to heartworm disease, this test will also detect exposure to three tick-borne diseases (Lyme disease, Anaplasma phagocytophilum, and Ehrlichia canis). Along with the American Heartworm Society, we recommend annual testing because there is always a chance for dosing issues (an example would be when your pet takes their medication and then finds something interesting in the yard to eat…that doesn’t agree with them…). Also, the test is 95-100% accurate only when there are at least 3 adult female worms present. Annual testing will ensure that these types of early infections will not be missed before the heartworm infection has caused extensive damage to the lungs.
