Pet Forum / Miscellaneous / Animal Health / November 2007

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/BODY_NG007
(click on the link for full article on hookworms)
Managing Hookworms in Dogs and Cats
Inquiries about controlling hookworms in the yard, especially in living
grass, are particularly difficult to deal with. Many people simply do not
realize that the problem must be addressed by a combination of:

 1.. Veterinary animal therapy with effective anthelmintics;

 2.. Disinfestation of lounging areas that are already infested;

 3.. Daily sanitation of the yard and home environment of the pets.

Veterinary Animal Therapy
Pet owners are accustomed to taking listless pets to the vet to have them
"wormed" (more properly, "dewormed"). All puppies and the mother should be
treated at 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 weeks post partum. Veterinarians have several
effective drugs from which to choose. However, veterinary treatment of
infected pets is only part of what must be done to correct the problem. The
part of the hookworm life cycle outside of the pet can serve as a source of
infection or reinfection to animals or people.

Prevention and Sanitation
Because the eggs are deposited in feces, sanitation is critical to avoiding
infection/reinfection of pets. Ideally, feces should be removed daily and
not allowed to collect where the animals or humans spend time. Juvenile
hookworms are sensitive to sunlight, desiccation, and temperature extremes.
Foliage of turf or other plants may protect the infective forms from all of
these factors, so turfgrass is the least desirable surface for lounging
areas for animals from the standpoint of hookworm infections, even though it
is the most commonly used for household pets. When acquiring a new puppy,
train it to use one part of the yard for its latrine; this expedites
clean-up and limits the area with greatest potential for contamination.
Keeping dogs on concrete or gravel runs will minimize survival of hookworms
and facilitate cleanup. Sunlight should directly hit all parts of the area
at least 2 hours each day, to help keep it dry and to reduce the survival of
infective hookworm juveniles.
Sanitation to prevent carry-over of eggs and juveniles in feces and
providing plenty of room so animals are not forced into prolonged close
contact with feces are most important in minimizing the recycling of pet
hookworm infections. Since recent evidence indicates that infectious larvae
can survive after emerging from feces for up to 4 weeks under summer
conditions (perhaps longer in winter), careful attention to sanitation,
including old feces, is critical for successful management of hookworm in
the yard. Mature dogs develop good immunity to hookworms, but even they can
have small populations of adult hookworms producing low numbers of eggs
which contribute to the contamination of the yard.

If infection reaches serious proportion, all individual pets should be
treated by a veterinarian at the same time. When they are returned home,
they should be kept off the most contaminated areas if those can be
identified, and should not be crowded into a small space. Feces should still
be picked up daily and disposed of properly because most deworming drugs do
not kill the eggs immediately and some kill the adults slowly. Err on the
side of caution. Remember that the hookworms in the dog are only the tip of
the iceberg, with those in the environment constituting the hidden bulk of
the iceberg. If the pets have a run or kennel, it should be cleaned of all
feces and treated with a product to control hookworm juveniles if one can be
located. Several treatments, including common salt brine (1.5 lb common salt
per gallon of water, applied at 1 pt per sq ft) or borax, can be used
successfully on bare ground, gravel or concrete. However, there is at
present no available product that is known to be both effective for control
of infective larvae on/in living turf or other plants and safe for plants.

Recent loss of a widely-used product, Hill's VIP Hookworm Control, has
caused many veterinarians to refer clients who have hookworm-infested yards
to local pest control companies. However, at this time, pest control
operators also have nothing registered or recommended to control hookworms.
It is possible that some pesticide(s) now registered for control of other
pests on turf might be effective, but research to identify such treatments
apparently has not yet been completed. Management of the soil-borne stages
of animal parasites is not studied by many. Most veterinary scientists who
work with hookworms are interested in the parasite life-cycle in the animal
host. Nematologists who are familiar with managing soil-borne nematode pests
of plants are rarely familiar with animal parasites. Moreover, the stage of
hookworms that occurs in soil or on turf is very difficult to distinguish
from dozens of harmless "free-living" nematodes. In the meantime, minimizing
hookworm infections in pets requires attention to all the steps in the
integrated management program we have outlined:

 a.. Treat the animals with pharmaceutical products at the veterinary
office, or as prescribed by a veterinarian.

 b.. Clean up the area in which the animals spend most of their time, to
remove feces every day that can be a source of continued recontamination.

 c.. Keep it clean; the antihelminthic drugs used/prescribed by your
veterinarian do not immediately eradicate all living hookworms in the
intestines of your pet(s), so their feces may still contain living eggs for
some time after treatment is initiated. Daily removal (and disinfestation
with chemicals that may be appropriate for the site, if there are any) will
minimize the risk of reinfection of pets after they have been successfully
treated.