To prevent tapeworms, you need to prevent fleas. Make sure your dog is on a monthly flea medication.

Indeed, indoor dogs can still get intestinal parasites. We could potentially bring some of those eggs and that feces in off the street on our shoes.

Dogs can get intestinal parasites through fecal-oral transmission, meaning that they ingest feces, or they can pick it up from licking their paws where they've walked through contaminated areas, or by eating fleas.

Yes, all intestinal parasites can be prevented.

Untreated worms can actually cause a dog to die. This is because it causes so much GI upset that the dog is not getting the proper nutrition.

Worms can last for as long as your dog has them, so they can be in there for years.

Worms are very common in dogs. They're more common in puppies, but we do see them in dogs of any age.

Most of the time, worms are not visible in the stool. They're microscopic eggs that we have to see under a microscope. However, in some cases, such as tapeworms, they'll come out looking like little grains of rice that are moving around.

Worms aren't painful to the dog, but they can cause them to be a little bit more uncomfortable.

Typically, dogs get worms through fecal oral transmission. This means that they either step in feces and then lick their paw, or sometimes they eat other dog's poop. In some cases such as tapeworms, they get worms by eating a flea.