Intestinal Worms
Both dogs and cats are born with lots of worms that go dormant in their muscle tissue and emerge throughout the pet's life during periods of stress (especially pregnancy) or sickness. That's why even pets without exposure to other pets can turn up positive for worms after previously being tested as negative on a fecal exam. Isn't that interesting?
In addition, they continuously pick up microscopic worm eggs in the environment. The worms go through their life cycle in the dog or cat, causing various degrees of trouble to the pet and end up spreading more worm eggs via the stool around the yard etc.
People can also pick up these worm eggs, remember they are microscopic, and transmit them accidentally to their mouth.
Luckily, most of us have a healthy immune system and the worms in dogs and cats are usually successfully killed soon after entering our bodies...but not always right away.
This may be one of the causes of unexplained fevers, aches and pains that people suffer from for a couple of days and we often call "a touch of flu".
But occasionally worms can cause much more serious trouble in humans, especially to a developing fetus or children.
A more serious way that people get worm diseases from pets is from eggs in the yard or sandbox that hatch into larvae that can bore into skin and travel around in your blood, lymph, or neural system causing anything from mild rashes to blindness and other terrible disease.
This is a problem with barefoot children, especially if the ground is damp which favors larval hatching. This disease is known as larval migrans .
This problem is controlled by keeping pet stool picked up and mostly from regularly deworming your pets. Get your worm control products from a vet...many products sold elsewhere don't work very well... and have your pet's stool checked once a year for resistant worms.
The worms carried by raccoons can also cause serious larval diseases in humans so don't encourage these animals into your yard.
Remember that raccoons are a major reservoir of rabies too. (Don't feed them or leave garbage out where they can get in it)
Tape Worms
Tapeworms are intestinal worms too, but I listed them separately for a practical reason. Tapeworms are not well controlled by the deworming medicines most vets use for other worms. They have become very resistant to the products that work well on other worms.
Tapeworms have to go through a flea or rodent as part of their life cycle before infesting you or your pet, so we control them by using high quality flea products. For cats and those dogs that are regular mousers we monitor their stool for presence of the worms (they're fairly easy to see). It's not common for people to pick up these worms, but when we do, they can cause terrible damage including brain diseases which just might explain a few people I know.
If you see rice size worms in your pet's stool, tell your vet; they're easy to get rid of IF you use the right medicine. The two medicines that are working well are both prescription drugs so don't expect to do a good job with over the counter dewormers. And take advantage of the new flea products (also prescription) that are working so well.
