Heartiasis is a serious disease that can cause severe lung disease, heart failure, other organ damage and death in dogs. Heartworm disease does not spread directly between dogs, but needs to be transmitted through mosquito bites. When a dog is bitten by a mosquito, the larvae of heartworm carried by the mosquito will enter the dog's body.
A adult heartworm can be up to 15~30 cm long. They generally have a lifespan of 5-7 years. Adult heartworms will produce a large number of larvae eggs, which will be distributed in every part of the dog's body.
When mosquitoes bite dogs, these larvae will spread to other dogs through mosquitoes. In this way, the closed transmission chain of dogs → mosquitoes → dogs is completed. What’s scary is that there may be 1 to 250 heartworms in the dog’s body.
The severity of heartworms is related to how many heartworms are in the dog's body, how long the dog is infected, and how the dog's body responds to heartworms. Heartworm disease has four stages. The more you go, the more serious the disease and the more obvious the symptoms.