(March 25, 2018 at 7:35 pm)Mermaid Wrote:(March 24, 2018 at 8:20 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: Did they have adult heart worms? Your dogs may not have been at the same stage or had the same worm load.
The injections are into a large muscle in the back, hence the shaving with long hair (these dogs get shaved even for a blood draw). She was touch and go for a long while. If I recall correctly she was on cage rest for 4 months. But then she had other co-morbid issues.
https://www.heartwormsociety.org/veterin...plications
Any dog that is positive on an antigen test or microfilaria test has adults already. It's not possible for them to be MF+ and not have adults.
But, depending on the timing of the infection, you can get a dog who has adult worms which have not reached sexual maturity and thus not laid eggs. That was the situation we had with our second Korean dog, Jessica. They skipped the first two months of Heartguard and went right to the Immiticide. We had them double check with the microscope for microfilaria and they weren't there.... yet.