Whipworm Symptoms in Your Pets

Whipworms start off as silent parasitic predators, hatched from a microscopic egg along the intestinal wall of your beloved pet. After three months of sitting harmlessly inside the intestinal tract, the whipworm hatches and immediately begins to feed from the nutrients provided by your pet’s biological waste. During this stage of whipworm infestation, there are no symptoms. Symptoms occur when the little parasite has had time to grow, develop, and feed more veraciously. When there is one whipworm, there are more, and as the infestation grows and feeds, your pet begins to experience symptoms.

Whipworm is typically a result of drinking contaminated water, although a small percentage of pets might contract the parasite from contaminated ground, ingesting the eggs when licking their paws. In some cases, a dog or cat can re-contaminate themselves and rapidly increase their own infestation. Since the early stages are asymptomatic, pet owners are often completely unaware of the developing health threat. As unappealing as it may be, pet owners should take it upon themselves to randomly inspect their pet’s defecation for any signs of worms. While not all infestations can be seen with the naked eye, larger worms and dramatic infestations can often be detected by examining their fecal product.

When pets get any type of parasitic worm, they often experience upset stomachs, vomiting, and diarrhea. Diarrhea in dogs can be associated with a wide variety of possibilities, and dog owners often overlook the potential for serious dog health problems. Cats, as well experience vomiting and diarrhea, which is often mistaken for hairballs. Diarrhea in cats generally does not represent a hairball problem, but a more serious cat health complication.

The larger the infestation becomes, the greater the symptoms a dog or cat experiences. Whipworm can cause serious diarrhea and bloody diarrhea, or hemorrhaging. This can lead to immediate consequences should the bleeding not readily cease. Long term this can lead to anemia, weight loss, lack of energy, or lethargy. An adult whipworm can live anywhere from 5 months to nearly a year and a half, and an adult whipworm is capable of laying between 1000 and 2000 worms every day. This means that this parasite infestation can grow from nominal to severe in a heartbeat.

The most serious threat to an infected dog’s health comes from significant infestations. In the most severe cases, the worms actually break through the intestinal lining, creating a lesion that adheres to the intestinal wall to the abdominal cavity. Cats rarely experience this terribly uncomfortable condition.

Treating a whipworm is not easy. Treatment medications are ineffective on larvae or eggs, and only kill of the adult version of this nasty critter. This means that an infestation requires continuous treatment if there is hope of providing a dog or cat with relief and restoring them to their original state of cat or dog health. Worms and other parasites present a serious threat the cat and dog health, and without regular preventative care, whipworms, as well as other types of worms, can wreak havoc on your pet’s health.

If your dog or cat has whipworms, learn how to treat Whipworms in cats and dogs