I, too, use diatamacous earth. I've been using it for the past 3 years, mixed into a meal (we feed raw). We've not had issues with any kind of worm in that time.

Ivan had bad round worm when we got him and stongid made him really sick. We got food grade diatomaceous earth a tablespoon in food once daily for 3 days and wow did alot of worms come out, then once a week for 3 weeks and haven't seen any more

Um sorry for my ignorance... but how do you know your dog has worms? What do you look for in poop? Other than rapid weight loss, and vets testing fecal, how do we know?

Some worms can be seen in the stool. round worms, mostly in puppies and Tape worm in any age.
A yearly checkup for ANY dog should require a stool examination for parasites and a heart worm test.
Being proactive with your dog's health is much more effective then waiting for something to happen.

Stongid likely did not make the dog sick, the worms leaving the gi tract likely caused stomach upset.
Diatomaceous earth really doesn't work. If it did, no one would ever use any chemicals.

A fecal is a good idea.

Betty im going to strongly disagree with you. While the ingredient in strongid is one ot the safest..its a chemical that kills living things and you say it didn't hurt my dog? I know a bunch of dogs that have expelled roundworm by fecal matter and vomit. and while d.e. my not be as strong,,when used correctly it can and often does work. I know of a 6 week old puppy, that passed a few round worms in stool but was acting fine, no bulging stomach, anemia or any signs besides a few about 1/2 inch in stool. dog went to vet, got strongid, got very sic over next two hours and died in the middle of the night. Ive seen wolf hybrids, high percent REAL ones with worms seen and tested positive at vet..to be tested free and clear with no visual signs either after a month or so usage of d.e. if you and many others feel safe using chemicals on your dog. ask yourself if you would use the chemicals on your self, or would u try something safer? have you personally used d.e. with bad results? its all I give ivan now and hes had 3 all clear tests since with no roundworm..

Betty im going to strongly disagree with you. While the ingredient in strongid is one ot the safest..its a chemical that kills living things and you say it didn't hurt my dog? I know a bunch of dogs that have expelled roundworm by fecal matter and vomit. and while d.e. my not be as strong,,when used correctly it can and often does work. I know of a 6 week old puppy, that passed a few round worms in stool but was acting fine, no bulging stomach, anemia or any signs besides a few about 1/2 inch in stool. dog went to vet, got strongid, got very sic over next two hours and died in the middle of the night. Ive seen wolf hybrids, high percent REAL ones with worms seen and tested positive at vet..to be tested free and clear with no visual signs either after a month or so usage of d.e. if you and many others feel safe using chemicals on your dog. ask yourself if you would use the chemicals on your self, or would u try something safer? have you personally used d.e. with bad results? its all I give ivan now and hes had 3 all clear tests since with no roundworm..

" have you personally used d.e. with bad results? "



I use as few chemicals as possible, always. I don't use kibble. I do minimal vaccinating. I don't use a dewormer as a matter of course ... only when the need is seen.

IOW, I try very hard to minimize use of chemicals (ingested or topical).

But my own experience backs up what Dr. Betty said. I wanted the DE to work, and I wanted to avoid using the dewormer. But it didn't, and I had to use it.

Is there anything besides strongid that is mild in case I need it in the future, or do you think at 5 months. Or older he would be ok? I do agree its safer than others..

Stongid is the drug for pin worms in children. I had pin worms when I was a little girl. They were awful. So I guess I've had pyrantel pamonate, the Strongid drug.

With DE you are talking about an agent which is supposed to cause mechanical trauma to the worm and kill it, as I understand it. But, the outside of the worm isn't all that different from the inside of the dog. So I don't understand the rationale of giving something which is essentially like tiny ground glass. It makes me nervous to think of all that scraping inside the bowel. If the hope is that the worm will ingest the DE --- I don't think that they do that. Intestinal parasites are not like earthworms.

The idea with the Strongid is that the worms are paralyzed, but the dog isn't.

Mature dogs develop immunity toward worms. So, as your dog grows up he's unlikely to have a + fecal. But, sadly, the worms move into their muscle tissue, are encysted there -----when a pregnant bitch develops her teats, her milk, the worms migrate to the breast, and the cycle is repeated. It's pretty amazing, really. 100% of puppies have worms.

I think worms are super interesting.

I think DE works pretty well for lice on chickens. Other than that, I don't think it's very effective. DE is supposed to control coccidia in organic sheep. I can tell you from experience that doesn't work .

I would suspect your friends pup had a heck of a burden of worms, even though he wasn't showing many outward signs. He likely died from a perforated intestine. I'm glad that I wasn't his vet! The pup should have been given a real SMALL dose of the dewormer, once a week. Your friend with the wolves should consider at least searching on the internet for a medication which will reduce the number of encysted larva in adult dogs. This would reduce the load in the pups. Be careful of the ivermectin drugs, though. I don't know if those are safe in wolves. They are not safe for collies.

When you see roundworms in the stool it's because there isn't enough space in the GI tract for all of them,they are just swept out. Tapes are different -- they break off little pieces, that's how they spread.