Treating Yard For Hookworms

[smt]

Hello,

New to the forum, and a recent adopter of our second GH. We lost Rosie in 2018, and brought Ruby home on 1.27.19. She was dewormed in foster care, but fecal tested positive for hooks yesterday. Dosed with Drontal Plus yesterday, and so far has tolerated it without concern. Will begin monthly Advantage Multi on March 1. Will re-dose with Drontal Plus mid-month until she has 3 clean fecals. We feel optimistic about the course of treatment (which we found here via a link to Dr. Jennifer Ng's hookworm protocol). My question involves treating the yard. We have a very large fenced, grassy back yard, and Ruby has not landed on a particular area to do her business, so we are talking a very large area that is potentially contaminated and we will need to stay on top of. We clean up the stools each time she poops, but inevitably, because it is the consistency of soft serve, it is impossible to get it all up. Also, we have only just started cleaning after every poop in the last few days, when we became aware of the necessity to do so. For the first month we had her, we would scoop poop every other day or so, and are worried that the yard was potentially contaminated during that period. I have called around the Nashville area and no pest control company treats yards for hooks (at least that I have found). Online research turned up a product called Wondercide. Does anyone have feedback on the effectiveness of this product? Also, have read that sprinkling diamataceous earth on the spots where she poops will also kill the larvae. Anyone have experience with this method to keep the yard clean of hookworms? Should we use food grade DE?

Please do not judge, but our lush, green lawn is my partners' pride, and doing something drastic like killing off the grass with Borax or spraying bleach on the spots where Ruby poops is not going to go over well. I am looking for a method of decontamination and ongoing maintenance that is effective yet also allows for our yard to remain my partner's pride. Help, please. This is coming on top of Ruby having a degree of separation anxiety/isolation distress (another thread on this soon, possibly). I share that only to give context for spending a lot of $$$$ and our lives have become way more stressful than we ever experienced with our first GH. It seems like each time we turn around, there is something else to contend with.

 

 

[greysmom]

You should read through both the "Hookworm" thread and the other thread about yard maintenance. Hang in there!

[cgs]

I'm not completely convinced they can really be reinfected from the yard. It's never been explained to me in a way that makes sense. Maybe someone here can try. If a dog is on medication and finally becomes hook free, they've become hook free because the larval leak cycle has been disrupted and the adult hooks have been killed off. That same medicine is keeping new hookworms from taking hold, isn't it? Our little dog has always been on heartworm plus, and in the year we've had Percy, always hook positive until a week ago, she has spent countless hours sniffing around the yard and lying in various places in the yard. She never got hooks. If they get clear of hooks, and you continue to have them on a preventative, doesn't it prevent reinfection?

 

And not to burst your bubble, but I do think it's going to take a while to get rid of them. Even if you start out with a protocol that has worked for others (and I think you have to do Advantage Multi every 2 weeks, not monthly), it can take 6-12 months to finally get rid of them. I hope it doesn't take that long, but it might.

[Daks]

I'm not completely convinced they can really be reinfected from the yard. It's never been explained to me in a way that makes sense. Maybe someone here can try. If a dog is on medication and finally becomes hook free, they've become hook free because the larval leak cycle has been disrupted and the adult hooks have been killed off. That same medicine is keeping new hookworms from taking hold, isn't it? Our little dog has always been on heartworm plus, and in the year we've had Percy, always hook positive until a week ago, she has spent countless hours sniffing around the yard and lying in various places in the yard. She never got hooks. If they get clear of hooks, and you continue to have them on a preventative, doesn't it prevent reinfection?

 

And not to burst your bubble, but I do think it's going to take a while to get rid of them. Even if you start out with a protocol that has worked for others (and I think you have to do Advantage Multi every 2 weeks, not monthly), it can take 6-12 months to finally get rid of them. I hope it doesn't take that long, but it might.

I believe the AM takes care of the hookworms in the tissues, not those in the gut, so a dog could eat a blade of grass that has a hookworm egg/larvae on it and would be reinfected if it was still undergoing treatment (before the AM reaches steady state in the blood stream). They can also be contracted through the feet. If you want to be really grossed out, google "hookworm beach" and there's stories of people contracting hookworms in their feet from walking barefoot on the beach in tropical areas, which is a pretty good reason to not want them in your yard.

 

Also there's a growing number of people like Dr. Ng, a greyhound vet, who are concerned about dosing AM twice a month. The protocol that calls for two does a month was not created by or supervised by a vet.

[smt]

cgs - I just got off the phone with our vet, and she basically validated everything you wrote. Once the larval leak is effectively disrupted (via the ongoing application of Advantage Multi), and the recurring hooks in her intestines are finally purged via the regular deworming, then getting re-infested from the yard should not occur, because she will stay on preventive medicine. This was a relief to hear, and it does make sense, otherwise, it seems most every dog that visits a dog park or doggie day care or greenway, etc.would be battling a never-ending cycle of hookworms due to exposure.

 

Dr. Ng's protocol is once monthly Advantage Multi, vs every other week, as is the Prison Protocol. She also advises EITHER Drontal Plus or 5 days of Panacur. The vet I spoke with today advises 5 days of Panancur, saying that she has not had great experience with Drontal Plus clearing the hooks. This was discouraging since we just dosed with Drontal Plus and have another dose in the cupboard for mid-March. She advised that if Ruby still has soft serve poop next Monday, to come in and get a 5 day course of Panacur, a prescription of Metronidazole, and some Forti-Flora. I know each vet is different (our actual vet is out of town, so we are consulting with her colleagues). It is so confusing when we get different recommendations. We do know that we are in for the long haul treatment with this. We can hang with that, assuming we do not have to torch the yard.

On to addressing what may be separation anxiety next . . . We just cancelled a 50th birthday trip to MX bc since adopting Ruby, our resources, both financial and emotional, are stretched to the max. It is very stressful to be worrying about her well-being, not to mention the multiple hits to the budget that we had not anticipated.

[Bizeebee]

We did some borax sprinkling on our poop spots [we babysat a hook dog with pudding hookwormy poops] after scraping up as much as we could. It takes a bit of a toll on those spots, but that was June and by August you couldn't even tell where those spots were. I wouldn't recommend it for all over treatment, but for spot treating it really wasn't any worse than pee burn on the grass.

 

No judgement, I also take a lot of pride in my yard, but honestly, with a greyhound that gets to run, pee, poop, and possibly even dig in your yard, your partner is going to have to get used to not having the same yard as before-dog. It can still be beautiful, but it's likely never going to be "perfect" again.

 

On the other hand, if you guys find a turf grass that can stand up to your grey running around without tearing it up please let me know what variety that is!

[Rickiesmom]

 

On the other hand, if you guys find a turf grass that can stand up to your grey running around without tearing it up please let me know what variety that is!

 

I think a lot of us would second that request for sure !!

[smt]

We did some borax sprinkling on our poop spots [we babysat a hook dog with pudding hookwormy poops] after scraping up as much as we could. It takes a bit of a toll on those spots, but that was June and by August you couldn't even tell where those spots were. I wouldn't recommend it for all over treatment, but for spot treating it really wasn't any worse than pee burn on the grass.

 

No judgement, I also take a lot of pride in my yard, but honestly, with a greyhound that gets to run, pee, poop, and possibly even dig in your yard, your partner is going to have to get used to not having the same yard as before-dog. It can still be beautiful, but it's likely never going to be "perfect" again.

 

On the other hand, if you guys find a turf grass that can stand up to your grey running around without tearing it up please let me know what variety that is!

Thanks for that feedback on the borax. That soothes some of my fears. For some reason, our previous grey, who was a big runner, did not tear up the year. Maybe because it was so large. Now, she did dig. In fact, we often said, that was the very worst complaint we had of her. It wasn't terrible, but it did annoy my partner. Especially when she would start us down and do it anyway before we could get to her. Little devil!

[cgs]

cgs - I just got off the phone with our vet, and she basically validated everything you wrote. Once the larval leak is effectively disrupted (via the ongoing application of Advantage Multi), and the recurring hooks in her intestines are finally purged via the regular deworming, then getting re-infested from the yard should not occur, because she will stay on preventive medicine. This was a relief to hear, and it does make sense, otherwise, it seems most every dog that visits a dog park or doggie day care or greenway, etc.would be battling a never-ending cycle of hookworms due to exposure.

 

Dr. Ng's protocol is once monthly Advantage Multi, vs every other week, as is the Prison Protocol. She also advises EITHER Drontal Plus or 5 days of Panacur. The vet I spoke with today advises 5 days of Panancur, saying that she has not had great experience with Drontal Plus clearing the hooks. This was discouraging since we just dosed with Drontal Plus and have another dose in the cupboard for mid-March. She advised that if Ruby still has soft serve poop next Monday, to come in and get a 5 day course of Panacur, a prescription of Metronidazole, and some Forti-Flora. I know each vet is different (our actual vet is out of town, so we are consulting with her colleagues). It is so confusing when we get different recommendations. We do know that we are in for the long haul treatment with this. We can hang with that, assuming we do not have to torch the yard.

On to addressing what may be separation anxiety next . . . We just cancelled a 50th birthday trip to MX bc since adopting Ruby, our resources, both financial and emotional, are stretched to the max. It is very stressful to be worrying about her well-being, not to mention the multiple hits to the budget that we had not anticipated.

 

 

Good to know the vet confirmed my thinking. As for drontal vs panecur, all I can say is that in the end, it was Drontal. I don't know if that did the trick or if it took 11 months for the larval leak to be disrupted or what. But we had tried both early on, then did advantage multi only for quite a while, then went back to panacur and retested and he was still positive at the same level on Dec 5. Started drontal plus every 2 weeks in mid-Dec and he was negative 3 weeks into February.

 

We're supposed to retest in 6 weeks, so I'm trying to decide what protocol to use between now and then, and then what to use afterwards. I'd like to just use Heartguard, but I'm leery of stopping the advantage multi. Heartgard has kept our little dog worm free though.

[smt]

 

 

Good to know the vet confirmed my thinking. As for drontal vs panecur, all I can say is that in the end, it was Drontal. I don't know if that did the trick or if it took 11 months for the larval leak to be disrupted or what. But we had tried both early on, then did advantage multi only for quite a while, then went back to panacur and retested and he was still positive at the same level on Dec 5. Started drontal plus every 2 weeks in mid-Dec and he was negative 3 weeks into February.

 

We're supposed to retest in 6 weeks, so I'm trying to decide what protocol to use between now and then, and then what to use afterwards. I'd like to just use Heartguard, but I'm leery of stopping the advantage multi. Heartgard has kept our little dog worm free though.

Can you clarify, did you administer Drontal Plus once every two weeks, and if so, for how long? The protocol we are using calls for Advantage Multi on the 1st of each month, and Drontal Plus mid-month (so once every four weeks).