Worms and back end weakness

P

poiuytrewq

Well-Known Member
Joined
3 April 2008
Messages
21,672
Location
Cotswolds
Visit site
Is there any link between the two?
My dog was over due worming and although I'd purchased some I held off giving it as I was unsure on his weight and if over dosing was dangerous.
I noticed his back end seemed to drop weight and become a bit weak/wobbly at times. Usually in the evening if he'd been lying down a lot and jumped up. No one else agreed and I do tend to worry over nothing a lot so I tried to ignore it. He's due at the vet next week anyway so figured I'd see what he thought.
However I got a scales and wormed him in the meantime and the problem has gone.
His whole back end looks stronger and there has been no wobbliness the past few evenings.
Is there a link? I admit to being a bit clueless when it comes to dog worms
 
Oh ok, it seemed far fetched even to me but was the only thing that has changed, other than the fact he hasnt been coming to work with me just recently as my boss's bitch is in season and he's not castrated yet so maybe its the rest- not that he's overly active at work but he is wandering round much of the time rather than chilling in bed!
 
'Generally', and whilst generalisations are risky, mostly it would be young dogs which would be the more likely to show evidence of an excessive worm burden, but I would be most surprised to hear that it only affected the back end. I would have thought that a youngster with an unacceptable worm burden, and serious enough to affect it's strength, would be exceedingly thin. If your dog isn't particularly thin, then I'd say that perhaps you could monitor the condition, and then seek veterinary advice.

Most dogs SHOULD and WILL carry level of internal parasites, and constant worming may actually have a debilitating effect.

Is there any change?

Alec.
 
Ok, interesting. He wasn't thin before worming but has put a little weight on since.
I would hope he wasn't really wormy as he's always been wormed regularly- the vet advised once a month until 6 months which I did then, then tbh I'm not 100% sure what he said now I think about it. But he would have been done last at 6/7 mths. He is actually 1 at the end of June (29th) did I leave it too long maybe?
 
The risk of a serious parasite challenge is when puppies are kept as a group, and generally within a kennelled area. Kennelled puppies are at risk. Generally (and we know about generalisations!), when a young dog, as an 'older' puppy, probably 3 months plus, is away from the en-masse environment of other puppies, then the challenge is reduced, to somewhere between drastically and non-existent.

Once a puppy is wormed, and we'll assume within a domestic environment, so the adult worms are generally killed, but dependant upon the worm variety, so the viable eggs are spat out, along with the excreta. Now this is the point of risk, in that the puppy needs to re-ingest eggs or pupae for the cycle to start again. I'm not entirely sure just how puppies which aren't quite literally, living in their own s**t, manage to re-ingest the eggs and so start the cycle, all over again.

Over the years I've bought lurcher pups from Travellers campsites, and have yet to take in a puppy with a significant worm burden. I reckon that this is because the puppies aren't generally contained, and because of that, so they don't get the chance to re-infect.

I would take issue with any veterinary advice which is to 'worm-regardless', for a puppy which lives on relatively 'clean' ground, because it's the ground from whence the threat comes, generally.

Every 6 months? If you must!

Again, for a worm burden to have any significant affect upon the animal's ability to move with any degree of fluidity, then the burden would have to be so monstrous that it would have been obvious to the blind, I'd have thought.

Just out of interest, what breed or type of dog are we discussing?

Alec.
 
A Labrador.
He does eat a lot of horse poo and general nastiness being out and about on the yard at work with me much of the day.
How often would you recommend worming?
 
All varieties of gut parasites (worms), regardless of the fact that those in a horse and a dog will share the same name, don't inhabit cross species. In other words, The tape worm which a dog has, is a different creature from the tape worm that a horse, or a sheep or a cow get. I don't think that that applies to the Fluke, but it does to everything else.

When a dog eats horse ***t, the only thing likely to happen, is that the dogs poo may very well be green! "Horse ***t don't hurt dorgs". We may shout at the wretched creature, but it wont do them any harm. Mine love the stuff, filthy little sods!!

How often to worm? Once a year, twice, or when they're looking a bit pot bellied or ribby, or when you inspect the dog's poo, and see evidence of worms, I suppose is the answer. There are no prescribed times, as far as I'm aware, unless of course you take the advice of the person who's selling the stuff to you! :wink3:

Alec.
 
Thats a relief! I love having him at work with me but was getting told he'd be riddled with worms because he keeps eating the horse poo!
A string of 4 racers pull out and its a race between the dog and I as to who gets to it first! ;)
 
poiuytrewq said:
Thats a relief! I love having him at work with me but was getting told he'd be riddled with worms because he keeps eating the horse poo!
A string of 4 racers pull out and its a race between the dog and I as to who gets to it first! ;)
Click to expand...

:D:D Understood!

Trust me, parasites are not transmissible between species.

Alec.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top