An early spring and plenty of standing water this year provided
plenty of breeding
areas for mosquitoes. These bloodsuckers don’t just bite. They
carry many diseases,
including heartworms.

You may not fret much about heartworms. But if dogs and cats
could worry about
them, they would.

“Heartworms are the No. 1 killer of dogs besides cars,” said Dr.
Jim Strickland, a
veterinarian with the University of Georgia Extension
Service. “And it’s almost
completely preventable.”

Heartworms kill thousands of dogs and some cats every year. In
the Southeast, where
mosquitoes thrive nearly year-round, animals can become infected
during any season.

Strickland said the heartworm goes through a year-long life
cycle. The parasite relies
on mosquitoes to carry it from one animal to another.

“Once the larva is transmitted into an animal, it stays in the
bloodstream and moves
into the heart, where it becomes an adult,” Strickland said.

The adult heartworms take up space in the heart, preventing it
from working
efficiently. They eventually cause death by congestive heart
failure. Your vet can treat
pets for adult heartworms, but the procedure is costly and
risky.

The best way to treat animals, Strickland said, is to prevent
the heartworms from
becoming adults. Preventive medicines use tiny doses of
insecticides to kill the larvae
in the animal.

A preventive for cats has recently been released to
veterinarians for prescription. “Only
about 10 percent of cats will become infected,” Strickland
said. “But it’s a much more
serious condition in cats, with poor treatment options.”

He recommends, though, that pet owners get their pets tested for
these and other
parasites every two to three years. Although the preventives are
effective, some larvae
may survive and grow to adults.

“Almost every dog, if it lives long enough, will get
heartworms,” Strickland said.
“Truly, an ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure.”

Extension entomologist Maxcy Nolan said mosquitoes are plentiful
this year. “Some
years the mosquito population is up, and some years it’s down,”
he said. “This year it’s
definitely up.”

Nolan said weather patterns this year have been favorable for
mosquitoes. The
relatively warm winter didn’t kill mosquito eggs as bitter cold
does. And frequent rain
leaves lots of puddles where mosquitoes breed.

“The smaller the area of water, whether in a puddle, a bucket or
even a tree hole, the
more concentrated the number of mosquito larvae,” Nolan said.

In spite of popular belief, ponds and small lakes aren’t
mosquito nurseries. These larger
water areas usually have wind blowing across them that drown
mosquito larvae. And
they contain fish that eat the developing insects.

Nolan said getting rid of small water areas is the best way to
control mosquitoes around
your home.

“Mosquitoes probably don’t move more than a few hundred feet
from where they were
bred and developed.” Preventing their development is the most
effective way to reduce
their number.

Repellent sprays, Nolan said, work on your pets as well as they
work on you. Contact
your county agent to learn more about controlling mosquitoes
around your home.