Much of the time, dogs will get it from their environment. So that's generally going to be the ground, whether at your home or if you're around the neighborhood or in the dog park. Sometimes puppies can be born with certain types of worms.

They can. Certain ones can be caught by humans. And often, that's going to be due to exposure from either not being necessarily hygienic, so perhaps not washing your hands well after cleaning up from your dog's poop and ingesting some eggs. Or you can get exposed by being out in the yard and stepping in dog poop while barefoot. So, children are certainly ones that are a little more prone to getting these. But if they step on the eggs themselves, then they can have worms that can be brought up through their skin as well.

Parasite prevention is a great thing to do for everybody. But also, if you know your dog has intestinal worms and you're working on getting that treated, you want to make sure you're picking up the stool. Either wear a glove or use a baggy, turn it inside out, and pick up that poop because that will sit in there and allow some of those eggs to come out into the stool, and your other animals could inadvertently get exposed.

As far as tapeworms go, they often come from a dog ingesting a flea. Not all fleas carry them, but some fleas do carry tapeworm eggs. Once your dog ingests that flea, that allows the egg to hatch inside your dog, and the adult tapeworm comes out. So to prevent that, you need to be sure that your dog and any other pets exposed to in the home are on effective flea prevention. That's a year-round type of thing. And if your dog's a farm or outside dog, maybe some kind of a mole hunter in the backyard, those types of rodents and things can carry fleas as well. So they possibly want to have a prophylactic deworming as far as either keeping them on heartworm prevention that deworms against the tapeworms or even deworming them each year.

Most intestinal parasites can be prevented. Many of the heartworm preventions that we have available will prevent a wide array of those intestinal parasites, so that's a great type of preventative for them to be on. And then, there are also other types of dewormers that are out there that are strictly dewormers that are sometimes used as means of prevention.

They can. Whether your dog is just going out to use the bathroom, or even if you were walking through a yard and potentially stepped on some dog poop and tracked it in, that is a way that they can get exposed. Or, even if they have fleas, they can get exposed to tapeworm eggs and still have those intestinal parasites.

Treats or a toy are your best friend, or even just praise in general. You want to be teaching them to sit, stay, and lay down. Those are going to be some commands that could be life-saving for them in the future.

Positive reinforcement works a lot differently than scolding your puppy. It seems to work along the lines that the puppy remembers what you're enforcing as far as good behavior. So if your puppy is doing something wrong, try to push them in the right direction. And if they start going that direction, give them all the praise that you absolutely can. So whether that be treats, giving them their favorite toy, just a good boy or a good girl and a nice little pet, those things can help them out.