April is National Heartworm Prevention Month.  Spring is also the time many people are having their dogs tested for heartworms and checking out their prevention options.  Statistics show that approximately 59% of pet owners give some type of prevention to their dogs.  Sadly, only about 5% of cat owners do the same.  Both pets are exposed to mosquitoes which carry this deadly disease, so why the discrepancy?

1.  The belief that heartworm disease is a "dog" disease.  This is simply not true, heartworm disease in cats is harder to detect as the symptoms are different - but they can cause equal amount of damage to the respiratory system.

2.  The notion that "indoor" cats are safe (some people feel the same about indoor dogs).  Mosquitoes can easily get indoors and it only takes one bite to infect a cat.

3.  Cats are too difficult to "pill".  Heartworm prevention is available in a liquid form applied above the should blades (also take care of fleas, intestinal parasites, and ear mites.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

https://www.heartwormsociety.org/images/Think_12_PDFs/9-13-fact-What_if_My_Cat_Test_Positive.pdf

http://www.heartwormsociety.org/