In making post-mortem examinations of dogs having died from the effect of these parasites, I have found as many as sixty worms in the heart, many of them measuring seven inches long.

Treatment: There is no known treatment that is likely to be of any service.

Worms in the Stomach and Bowels:

Symptoms: Round worms are more frequently found in young puppies than tapeworm, but occasionally the latter are found in puppies six or seven weeks old, whilst the round kind, called Ascaris Marginata, are present in puppies ten days old, when they look like pieces of cotton about an inch to an inch and a half long, and pointed at both ends. When present in such very young puppies they generally cause enteritis and death. A puppy suffering badly from worms does not thrive and grow, he generally eats voraciously. The stomach is distended sometimes to a very great extent, causing difficulty in breathing, the muscles waste, the legs and neck becoming quite thin. The action of the bowels is irregular, but as a rule, there is diarrhœa to a more or less extent, and sometimes vomiting, when the worms have passed into the stomach, and, if the worms are not got rid of, rickets is often the result.

With tapeworms the symptoms vary considerably. Some dogs may be infested with worms and yet not lose flesh, but as the result suffer from eczema, which disappears when the worms have been expelled; but as a rule, a dog eats well but does not put on flesh, and has a tucked-up appearance. The bowels are often irregular, the breath offensive, the coat dull and staring, and the dog is listless. The most positive symptoms of worms is when segments looking like small pieces of dried rice are found about the underneath parts of the tail and on the dog’s bed.

Worms occasionally cause paralysis of the hind legs. People often wonder how dogs get worms, especially pet dogs, who seldom leave their mistresses’ side, but it is easily accounted for, first, when it is taken into consideration how susceptible they are to these parasites; a dog, for instance, fed on raw meat or uncooked milk, or if he eats grass where there are sheep or rabbits, or if he drinks out of a pool which drains from land on which sheep are grazing, he is almost certain to get tapeworm, for sheep and rabbits are the intermediate host of some of the most common kind. Lice, again, act as the intermediate host of other sorts. I may here mention that tapeworms do not breed in a dog, but the eggs or larvæ must pass out of him and be swallowed by some other living creature, who is called the intermediate host. Here they develop into cysts or bladder-worms, and if these in their turn are swallowed by a dog they develop into a tapeworm, and so the cycle is completed.

Treatment: It is most important that house dogs should be kept free of worms, for if by chance or accident a person swallows an egg or larva from a tapeworm there is the danger of a cyst or bladder-worm forming in one’s liver, which is a most serious and often fatal disease. As to the treatment of worms in young puppies, unless the case is serious it is not advisable to commence dosing before the puppy is five weeks old, and then a dose of the following medicine may be given three times a week, half an hour before food:—

Recipe: Worm Mixture:

Santonine,1 scruple.
Liquor Senna Dulc.,1 ounce.
Glycerine,½ ounce.
Syrup Aniseed,3½ ounces.
Well mix.

Doses: For small puppies like griffons, etc., when five or six weeks old, a quarter of a teaspoonful; fox-terrier puppies, same age, half a teaspoonful; retriever puppies, etc., same age, three-quarters of a teaspoonful; St. Bernard puppies, one teaspoonful—to be given half an hour before the first morning meal. Repeat twice a week. The doses may be gradually increased, according to age and size of puppies. The bottle must be well shaken before pouring out the dose.