“How do you know if they have worms? They don’t gain weight? It pops out in their stool?”
Depends on the type of worm. Hookworms can have a noticeable effect on a pet’s nutritional absorption. I’m not sure if they are visible to the naked eye in the animal’s stool. A quick online search says hookworms can be absorbed through the skin or can be passed through mother’s milk. Apparently they can also infest soil until an unlucky host comes by.
Tapeworm segments are visible on stools and around the pet’s anus as little flat grains of rice. Compared to hookworms they do little damage to a pet, but are rather gross when your charming feline brushes one off against you, LOL. It your kitty cleaned a flea off her skin or consumed it on a prey animal, that’s how she got a tapeworm. My vet whom I’ve known for many years will diagnose that over the phone and allow me to pick up wormer without bringing the cat in for a visit, which is nice, but then I’m left struggling to get it into my cat ...
The worst worm infestation I’ve seen was in a pitbull seized from a fighting ring. The animal control officer said the owner had been trying to starve it into aggression. Along with deliberate starvation - skin and bones, just lethargic - the dog had worms so bad that, as was explained to me, he had to fight the well-meaning urge to fatten up the animal to normal weight with large amounts of food. Too much food at one time (and I assume he also dewormed) would have forced too many worms to unhook from the intestines at once, causing life-threatening blood loss.
They make crushable tabs. Just mix it with a tablespoon of canned food & you should have no problem.
Wow. I’ve been very lucky then. Have never had any of that! Thank goodness as it sounds awful. It’s good to have a vet that knows you and trusts you to make the right diagnosis and is willing to help you over the phone. When you have a lot of animals, that really helps!