They do not discriminate, so whether your dog has short hair, long hair, or no hair, they will be there.

They do. And the reason is, we want to make sure that we're not letting any heartworms slip through the cracks. We want to ensure that the product is as effective as possible because nothing has a hundred percent guarantee anymore, and we want to try to keep your pet as safe as possible.

We will often do some follow-up tests. We'll look for the larval stage of that heartworm, the microfilariae, on a blood drop under the microscope to confirm that the heartworms are there. Sometimes we do a secondary confirmation with a send-out lab to be extra sure. But most times, that initial test is definitive.

We recommend testing at least once a year. And that's per the American Heartworm Society. If you're in a heartworm-heavy area and maybe you're not keeping your pet on prevention, you could do it every six months, but the best protection is keeping your pet on prevention.

We test with blood, so we draw a couple of drops of blood from your pet. Many of them don't tend to mind it one bit. And we have a test here in-house that we run that lets us detect any of those adult female worms present in your dog.

If we don't treat that heartworm, as I said, it ultimately could cause the death of your dog. We obviously don't want that for your pet, and that's why we always recommend prevention.

Depending on which prevention you choose, it's going to be for the most part the same as any medication. So perhaps your dog has a sensitive stomach and you see a little bit of GI upset. If we're giving ProHeart here in the clinic, it's not uncommon to have a bit of injection site soreness, just like when they get a vaccine.