He is housetrained and good with children as well as other animals. Spring is certainly here and with warm weather comes the emergence of mosquitoes. The dogs have been taken to the vet for their annual checkup, vaccination, heartworm test, and heartworm prevention. When you think of heartworm, most people think of only this problem being canine-related. Although dogs are at great risk, cats are susceptible to infection and outdoor cats are thought to be at more of an increased risk than inside cats.
Cats are infected in much the same way dogs are.
However, the disease is much different. Although infected mosquitoes may bite cats, cats may not develop adult heartworms. The worm burden is usually low, often less than 10 worms. Therefore, cats are unlikely to infect other animals as they are considered dead-end hosts and poor reservoirs of infection. Clinical signs of heartworm disease in cats can be nonspecific and may mimic other feline diseases.