Diseases and Other Fun Things: Part I

Hey all! We are briefly examining the exciting (?) topic of diseases today, so prepare yourselves for a barrage of disease-related information. :)

Fortunately, most of the common canine and feline diseases are actually non-hereditary. Why is this fortunate, you say? Well, due to the increased amount of vaccines and medicine, common non-hereditary diseases such as rabies and flea infections have decreased and are actively being prevented from manifesting and spreading. In addition, even if a dog is contaminated with a disease, it is likely curable. This is not to say hereditary diseases are incurable, but that they are harder to cure and may be passed on to a new generation.

Unfortunately, there are non-hereditary diseases that are very hard to treat-- such as heartworms. I was going to drudge up some disgusting, gruesome pictures for you guys so you can have the visual experience like I did, but I decided that  I would be a good person instead (and also keep my dinner). Heartworms (Dirofilaria immitis) are parasitic creatures similar to roundworms, but spend their adult life in the right side of the heart and the large arteries and veins connecting the heart to the lungs. Heartworms lay larvae in the bloodstreams and may reach 14 inches in adulthood; these larvae are spread to other animals through mosquitoes (yet another reason to hate mosquitoes) and migrate to the heart and, in some cases, the lungs to leech off nutrients for food. An infected organism may have hundreds of heartworms living in its heart; the symptoms are decreased appetite, weight loss, coughing, listlessness, accumulation of fluid in the abdominal area, and fatigue during exercise, or even heart failure.

Even though heartworms may be exterminated, the process can be  long and painful, depending on the severity of the case. There are preventive medicine and drugs to kill heartworms (immiticides) that can be injected into the muscle of the back, but these treatments usually take weeks to complete, not to mention they contain arsenic that may cause side effects (in rare cases). Even after heartworms are killed, the carcasses may block up the arteries and still cause heart failure in severe cases.

Such diseases are common to all dogs, whether they are pedigrees or not. A dog is a dog, and heartworms have been identified in all fifty states of the US.

If you like spaghetti, I would suggest that you do not look up heartworms, because that's what they look like...except bloody and alive and eating your heart (Not to worry, it is extremely rare for humans to be infested with heartworms).

~Someone who won't be eating spaghetti for a long time.