Hookworm!

[cgs]

Most recent fecal test was 7 or 8 days after the last treatment. I think maybe once or twice I've maybe seen a touch of blood in the stool right after treatment.

 

He may be eating poop sometimes--I try really hard to keep an eye on him in the yard and pick up immediately. He usually poops on walks, so not a problem, but sometimes he does go in the yard. I don't really understand why, if the medicine is killing off adult worms and larva and stopping larval leak, that a few more larva from eating poop would really be a problem. Seems to me meds should work on that as well.

 

I've had Lulu tested twice since getting Percy and she was negative both times and she (in warmer weather) would lie around in the yard a lot, so it seems to me it would have been easy for her to be exposed, but she was clear. So hopefully the HG+ wards it off.

 

Percy doesn't like to eat the Drontal and I've had a hard time even crushing it because it's so big. I'll try again though. I haven't given it to him in months and his eating habits and preferences have changed. He might like it now.

 

I was using the goat panacur, which was easy to mix with some rice and he at that with no problem. But after treatment every 2 weeks for 3 months, no progress.

[cgs]

Where's a good place to get Drontal plus? Someplace I don't need a prescription would be easier. I see Chewy and 1800petmeds, but anywhere cheaper?

Edited December 6, 2018 by cgs

[GreytXpctations]

The link in the prison doc for the Advocate also has Drontal Plus at a good price. Amazon has it as well under Drontal and Bayer Quad, but the price varies a lot. None of those places require a prescription.

 

It's crazy to have that many eggs in his stool only a week after treatment. They have to be adult to lay new eggs, and the adults should have all been knocked out by the Panacur, which if it was Merck Safeguard dewormer for goats, was the same thing I used the last time.

 

Maybe the drontal will work better if he can tolerate it.

[GreytXpctations]

What about just breaking the drontal in half so he can swallow them easier and you can divide the dose up into two or three halves depending on his dosage? I haven't really had a lot of luck with crushing, but half a pill wrapped in a small piece of cheese slice followed by a cookie gets swallowed without chewing or even tasting.

[LaFlaca]

Drontal must taste vile. Lola would not even eat raw hamburger with Drontal crushed in it. I had better luck cutting it into 4 pieces and wrapping the pieces in cheese. Unfortunately, she can no longer tolerate the Advantage Multi. Last time I applied it she acted like I had set her on fire. I had to take her outside and hose her down. This after about four months of the Prison Protocol. Her last fecal was negative but after over a year of this battle, I don't trust one negative. We'll retest in one month.

[Bizeebee]

Drontal must taste vile. Lola would not even eat raw hamburger with Drontal crushed in it. I had better luck cutting it into 4 pieces and wrapping the pieces in cheese. Unfortunately, she can no longer tolerate the Advantage Multi. Last time I applied it she acted like I had set her on fire. I had to take her outside and hose her down. This after about four months of the Prison Protocol. Her last fecal was negative but after over a year of this battle, I don't trust one negative. We'll retest in one month.

Sounds like the QuestPlus (has ingredients from both Advantage and Drontal) might work out better for Lola if you have to keep treating. Our kennel mixed it up with wet food for the pups. But, with any luck she won't need it!!

[cgs]

I ordered Drontal--enough for 4 doses. So I'll do that for 2 months (ever 2 weeks) and if i'm not having too much trouble getting it into him, maybe do another 2 months after that and test again.

[LaFlaca]

Sounds like the QuestPlus (has ingredients from both Advantage and Drontal) might work out better for Lola if you have to keep treating. Our kennel mixed it up with wet food for the pups. But, with any luck she won't need it!!

Sounds like the QuestPlus (has ingredients from both Advantage and Drontal) might work out better for Lola if you have to keep treating. Our kennel mixed it up with wet food for the pups. But, with any luck she won't need it!!

Thank you for this information. Fingers crossed we won’t need it.

[calif_chaz]

We are fighting a heavy dose of hookworms that he came with. It has been suggested that we add Advantage Multi instead of our usual Heartguard Plus. My concern is that he is wearing a seresto flea and tick collar and the Advantage Multi is for fleas as well as the worms. Is this going to be double dosing flea meds for him and cause a problem?

[LaFlaca]

We are fighting a heavy dose of hookworms that he came with. It has been suggested that we add Advantage Multi instead of our usual Heartguard Plus. My concern is that he is wearing a seresto flea and tick collar and the Advantage Multi is for fleas as well as the worms. Is this going to be double dosing flea meds for him and cause a problem?

You would have to eliminate the Seresto collar while your dog is on Advantage Multi. I took Lola off Trifexis while she was on the Prison protocol so as not to overdose her.

[calif_chaz]

You would have to eliminate the Seresto collar while your dog is on Advantage Multi. I took Lola off Trifexis while she was on the Prison protocol so as not to overdose her.

Thanks. That was my thought too.

[DaintyDutchess]

Sounds like the QuestPlus (has ingredients from both Advantage and Drontal) might work out better for Lola if you have to keep treating. Our kennel mixed it up with wet food for the pups. But, with any luck she won't need it!!

How often was your kennel treating with the QuestPlus?

[Bizeebee]

How often was your kennel treating with the QuestPlus?

Honestly, I'm not sure, but definitely on pickup day. Bismarck got a dose with some wet food on his way out the door.

 

Our guy had been waiting there to be chosen for a long time, from April until August, and I don't know if our group has the funding to treat dogs that are there for so long with an intensive protocol. The vet records we got for him didn't show any hook treatment during that time, and he was positive when we brought him home, but not with a super heavy load, so who knows. I think most dogs come and go to forever homes too fast for the kennel to do very many rounds of treatment.

 

I think to use QuestPlus instead of something like the Prison Protocol you'd want a vet to figure out the dosage and frequency to try to match an established protocol. It has most of the same active ingredients as DrontalPlus & Advantage Multi but it's packaged and dosed for horses.

If you're in Wisconsin your kennel might be our kennel (Burlington), so they might be able to answer some of those questions too if you think you want to use it for treatment.

Edited December 11, 2018 by Bizeebee

[DaintyDutchess]

Honestly, I'm not sure, but definitely on pickup day. Bismarck got a dose with some wet food on his way out the door.

 

Our guy had been waiting there to be chosen for a long time, from April until August, and I don't know if our group has the funding to treat dogs that are there for so long with an intensive protocol. The vet records we got for him didn't show any hook treatment during that time, and he was positive when we brought him home, but not with a super heavy load, so who knows. I think most dogs come and go to forever homes too fast for the kennel to do very many rounds of treatment.

 

I think to use QuestPlus instead of something like the Prison Protocol you'd want a vet to figure out the dosage and frequency to try to match an established protocol. It has most of the same active ingredients as DrontalPlus & Advantage Multi but it's packaged and dosed for horses.

If you're in Wisconsin your kennel might be our kennel (Burlington), so they might be able to answer some of those questions too if you think you want to use it for treatment.

Thanks for your reply. I am losing hope. My girls vet said she will have hookworms for the rest of her life. Its been 14 months post treatment. I wonder if the perma hooks means she will have health complications from it and not live as long? The most recent fecal showed +2 count and a few months back it was +1. Vet said to keep her on Advantage Multi monthly but I also wonder if the count will get higher and if we should ever use other dewormers again? I am waiting to here back from vet. I was told to give the QuestPlus (by someone that raises greyhounds for a kennel down south), once a week for 3 weeks. I never did since I was too scared to overdose her. I just dont know what to do. I am so in love with my girl and just want the best for her.

We did go through different adoption groups in WI. I understand there isnt enough funding for the dogs to be dewormed more routinely while waiting for their new homes but I wish the adoption groups would be a little more forth coming with info on hookworm. Like how its important to be agressive with treatment at first. I wouldnt want potential adopters to be turned off but yet they should be informed. I would have still adopted my girl knowing she had hooks but I wont say the first 6 months were easy. Her health was very poor due to hookworm. We have come a long way.

[Bizeebee]

Thanks for your reply. I am losing hope. My girls vet said she will have hookworms for the rest of her life. Its been 14 months post treatment. I wonder if the perma hooks means she will have health complications from it and not live as long? The most recent fecal showed +2 count and a few months back it was +1. Vet said to keep her on Advantage Multi monthly but I also wonder if the count will get higher and if we should ever use other dewormers again? I am waiting to here back from vet. I was told to give the QuestPlus (by someone that raises greyhounds for a kennel down south), once a week for 3 weeks. I never did since I was too scared to overdose her. I just dont know what to do. I am so in love with my girl and just want the best for her.

We did go through different adoption groups in WI. I understand there isnt enough funding for the dogs to be dewormed more routinely while waiting for their new homes but I wish the adoption groups would be a little more forth coming with info on hookworm. Like how its important to be agressive with treatment at first. I wouldnt want potential adopters to be turned off but yet they should be informed. I would have still adopted my girl knowing she had hooks but I wont say the first 6 months were easy. Her health was very poor due to hookworm. We have come a long way.

Don't lose hope! These buggers are incredibly tough, but even just keeping them under control is much better than nothing. I've done too much googling about what happens when hooks go untreated to believe that long-term treatment is worse than the alternative.

 

I am curious how you treated the hooks when you first got her? And for how long? My impression from reading here is that anyone who treated with the 'standard' regimen should adopt the mindset that they haven't really treated at all, just because the standard doesn't seem to touch these things.

Was she ever consistently hook-free? If her counts are climbing it does sound like it's time to restart treatment of some kind.

 

We're doing the Prison Protocol right now (AdvantageMulti and DrontalPlus every 1st and 15th of the month) and we're pretty optimistic so far. He has minimal side effects (just a bad poop day right after dosing) and doesn't mind the medicine, and we had our first negative test a couple weeks ago. Per the protocol we're going to keep treating through most of the winter to get multiple negative tests, and to make sure the cold temps kill any hooks deposited in our yard. From what I understand about how the Advantage works, the key is to keep that drug in their system continuously in order to keep new hooks from hatching and latching. We'll likely keep using that as our monthly flea topical once we're out of the woods.

 

QuestPlus has almost the same active ingredients as the Prison combo, but I would think doing Advantage and Drontal might be easier (it's already packaged in the right dosage), if you haven't already tried it. And if you have tried it and it failed then Quest probably isn't going to work any better.

 

I know I've read about a slightly different protocol here in this thread, a few pages back, that I think came out of Ohio State?

 

I've also been wondering about Telmintic/Mebendazole, which is a hookworm drug approved for humans as well as dogs. It looks like the side effects seen in dogs make it less likely to be recommended, with safer alternatives out there, but for a lot of people who've been struggling without success for a long time it might be worth asking vets about.

[cgs]

I ordered Drontal--enough for 4 doses. So I'll do that for 2 months (ever 2 weeks) and if i'm not having too much trouble getting it into him, maybe do another 2 months after that and test again.

 

I ordered Drontal Plus from petsupplyexpress.com, which is listed on the prison protocol. It's a UK company and their pills are different, so it's only one pill, not 1.5. So I have 6 doses, not 4 like I thought. Six pills. I gave him half of one and was excited that he took it, but he wouldn't take up the little chunks that fell out of his mouth and I had to wrap them in something good. So I think he might be extra suspicious of the other half. I'm waiting a bit to see if he barfs. So far so good. These pills are oval, not bone-shaped.

 

And Drontal Plus is just given one day right? Not 3 like panecur.

Edited December 15, 2018 by cgs

[LaFlaca]

 

 

 

And Drontal Plus is just given one day right? Not 3 like panecur.

The Drontal is given once every 2 weeks on the Prison Protocol.

[Guest Kelasmom]

We adopted from Florida and were of course, hookworm positive 5+. She was treated 6 days with Panacur, wait 3 weeks from the last dose and treat 6 more days. Fecal test 2 weeks later was hookworm negative. Just wondering how long I should wait to request another fecal test. The vet did not say she needed a retest.

[Bizeebee]

We adopted from Florida and were of course, hookworm positive 5+. She was treated 6 days with Panacur, wait 3 weeks from the last dose and treat 6 more days. Fecal test 2 weeks later was hookworm negative. Just wondering how long I should wait to request another fecal test. The vet did not say she needed a retest.

I don't think any of the protocols have a schedule they advise for retesting, but my thought has been to have at least a month between tests - obviously depending on the state of her poop and her healthy in general. If it changes suddenly it might be time to test again. Because the test only looks at a small sample it's pretty easy for them to have a negative result, but they might not really be clear of hooks.

 

It's been my experience that most vets aren't aware of the state of the hookworm problem in the greyhound community and will need to be educated by you on things like protocols and retesting, and the general resiliency of this particular hookworm.

 

Are you using Advantage Multi as your monthly flea topical? That is supposed to prevent the larval leak, hopefully stopping any hangers-on from reinfesting in case the drugs didn't catch them all the first time.

[Daks]

I don't think any of the protocols have a schedule they advise for retesting, but my thought has been to have at least a month between tests - obviously depending on the state of her poop and her healthy in general. If it changes suddenly it might be time to test again. Because the test only looks at a small sample it's pretty easy for them to have a negative result, but they might not really be clear of hooks.

 

It's been my experience that most vets aren't aware of the state of the hookworm problem in the greyhound community and will need to be educated by you on things like protocols and retesting, and the general resiliency of this particular hookworm.

 

Are you using Advantage Multi as your monthly flea topical? That is supposed to prevent the larval leak, hopefully stopping any hangers-on from reinfesting in case the drugs didn't catch them all the first time.

 

This might be a silly question- but will the Advantage Multi eventually take care of the problem on it's own? If after it builds up in their system (in three months or so) and it makes the tissue "inhospitable" to eggs, won't that break the life cycle? I ask this because Dakar has been on the advantage multi for two months now, and we just finished the third round of panacur treatment on the advice of our vet. If this didn't get it we were going to start the prison protocol if his retest was positive and have it coincide with his next dose of the advantage multi.

[cgs]

 

This might be a silly question- but will the Advantage Multi eventually take care of the problem on it's own? If after it builds up in their system (in three months or so) and it makes the tissue "inhospitable" to eggs, won't that break the life cycle? I ask this because Dakar has been on the advantage multi for two months now, and we just finished the third round of panacur treatment on the advice of our vet. If this didn't get it we were going to start the prison protocol if his retest was positive and have it coincide with his next dose of the advantage multi.

 

According to my vet, who spoke to a parasitologist, yes--the Advantage Multi alone should work eventually, but it could take 6-12 months. We're going on 9 months of giving it--sometimes with Drontal, sometimes with panacur, sometimes by itself--and he's still positive. We're now going back to Drontal and the prison protocol by the letter. When I'd tried Drontal earlier, I couldn't get it into him, but he's taking it better now. We'll do this for 3 months and see.

[Guest Kelasmom]

Kela gets frontline and heartguard plus monthly. Do these products work as well as advantage?

[Bizeebee]

Kela gets frontline and heartguard plus monthly. Do these products work as well as advantage?

It depends what you want them to work on: Fleas, ticks, and heartworm? They probably do work as well.

If you want them to help keep the hooks at bay, the answer is no.

If you compare Frontline with Advantage you'll see that their active ingredients are different, and the Frontline only claims to stop fleas and ticks - we shouldn't expect it to do any more than that. So as far as hook prophylactic, the Frontline isn't doing anything.

 

Whereas, the Advantage kills/prevents fleas, heartworms, hookworms, roundworms, whipworms, mange, and other microfilariae.

 

Heartguard is obviously for heartworm, and maybe at one time it worked for hookworms (they claim it does) but it's pretty clear from the experiences on here, and from the vets who wrote the Prison Protocol, that it isn't working well for greys and their hooks.

 

Since the Advantages covers pretty much everything except for ticks, that's what we'll use monthly (in addition to a tick med) once we're done with the Prison Protocol. I'd rather have something more "full coverage" anyway; I'm less worried about fleas than whatever he's bound to catch eating delicious rabbit poop.

[Daks]

 

According to my vet, who spoke to a parasitologist, yes--the Advantage Multi alone should work eventually, but it could take 6-12 months. We're going on 9 months of giving it--sometimes with Drontal, sometimes with panacur, sometimes by itself--and he's still positive. We're now going back to Drontal and the prison protocol by the letter. When I'd tried Drontal earlier, I couldn't get it into him, but he's taking it better now. We'll do this for 3 months and see.

Interesting.

 

We're going to stop trying with panacur rounds for the year, if the poops start deteriorating we'll retest and start the prison protocol mid January when he gets his next Advantage dose. I've always been hesitant giving the advantage twice a month (not sure why).

[Bizeebee]

Interesting.

 

We're going to stop trying with panacur rounds for the year, if the poops start deteriorating we'll retest and start the prison protocol mid January when he gets his next Advantage dose. I've always been hesitant giving the advantage twice a month (not sure why).

For what it's worth, we've had zero issues giving the Advantage (and drontal) twice a month. Poop gets a little worse the day after treatment but that's it.