Make sure that they're being treated and try to decrease their risk for coming in contact with mosquitoes. So make sure you get rid of any non-moving bodies of water, such as just pots sitting with water in them or just bowls. You want to try to keep those rinsed out and keep those clean. You can also spray your yard with different antibiotics.

Not that we recommend.

Get them their next dose immediately and then we're going to want to recheck that heartworm test in about six months.

It can. It just takes a much longer period of time than the fast kill method that we recommend. So while they're sitting there in that heart during that time, they can actually be causing much more damage.

Yes, I still recommend testing them every year because there are some heartworms that are resistant to these medications.

Heartworm prevention is very effective. As long as the heartworms aren't resistant to the medications, then it will kill all of them.

We usually start puppies at 8 to 12 weeks of age, depending on the type of prevention. Once you adopt a dog, that's when you want to go ahead and get started as well.

Heartworm disease is prevented by using different oral, topical, or injectable medications.

The more time dogs spend outside, the higher their risk of contracting heartworm disease. However, even indoor dogs, especially in areas like Florida, can still come in contact with mosquitoes and are therefore also at risk.

Heartworms are transmitted through mosquitoes. Mosquitoes take a blood meal from a dog, which contains the heartworm larvae, and then they go and drink from another dog where they inject some of that blood with the microfilaria into the next dog.