HEARTWORM EXPLANATION.

To infect your dog, you need mosquitoes (so you need warm temperatures and standing water). More specifically, you need a hungry female mosquito of an appropriate species. Female mosquitoes act as airborne incubators for premature baby heartworms (called microfilariae). Without the proper mosquito, dogs can't get heartworms.That means dogs can’t “catch" heartworms from other dogs or mammals or from dog park lawns. Puppies can't“catch" heartworms from their mothers and moms can't pass heartworm immunity to pups.

Step 2. Our hungry mosquito needs access to a dog already infected with sexually mature male and female heartworms that have produced babies.

Step 3. The heartworm babies must be at the L1 stage of development when the mosquito bites the dog and withdraws blood.

Step 4. Ten to fourteen days later— if the temperature is right– the microfilariae mature inside the mosquito to the infective L3 stage then migrate to the mosquitos mouth. (Yum!)

Step 5. Madame mosquito transmits the L3′s to your dog's skin with a bite. Then, if all conditions are right, the L3's develop in the skin for three to four months (to the L5 stage) before making their way into your dog's blood. But your dog still isn't doomed.

Step 6. Only if the dog’s immune system doesn't rid the dog of these worms do the heartworms develop to adulthood.

Step 7. It takes approximately six months for the surviving larvae to achieve maturity. At this point, the adult heartworms may produce babies if there are both males and females, but the kiddies will die unless a mosquito carrying L3′s intervenes. Otherwise, the adults will live several years then die.

In summation, a particular species of mosquito must bite a dog infected with circulating L1 heartworm babies, must carry the babies to stage L3 and then must bite your dog. The adult worms and babies will eventually die off in the dog unless your dog is bitten again! Oh, and one more thing.In Step 4 above I wrote that heartworm larvae develop“if the temperature is right."

The University of Pennsylvania vet school (in astudy funded by Merial) found:“Development in the mosquito is temperature dependent, requiring approximately two weeks of temperature at or above 27C (80F). Below a threshold temperature of 14C (57F), development cannot occur, and the cycle will be halted. As a result, transmission is limited to warm months, and duration of the transmission season varies geographically."CREDIT- LANGSLEY T RUSSELL (Beloved Bulldogs)

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In layman's terms:

”It is sad people are taught that ALL and ANY mosquitos carry heartworms. That is the biggest fallacy. The simple facts are that no heartworms can be developed in a mosquito unless there is a dog with active heartworms within 2 acres of wherever you are.

Second, the temps during the day or night have to be OVER 57 degrees for the larvae to develop inside the mosquito.

Third, IF the mosquito has bitten a dog with active heartworms, then it has to somehow suck up a microfilaria. They are not that abundant in most dogs so that every bite will end up in sucking up a microfilaria. Even if it does suck one up, the second point then applies.

Fourth, it takes a minimum of 10 days for the larvae to develop inside the mosquito. If the mosquito lives that long. They normally live 30 days, if lucky. Only after those 10 days of development inside of the mosquito can a larvae be transported onto a dog. Then if the dog's immune system cannot fight off the larvae, then and only then it has a few months to develop fully into a heartworm.Even after that, it takes two of the opposite sex to make more microfilaria. And the cycle used by the mosquito still has to continue to bite and re-bite THAT same dog that is now infected in order to make more adult heartworms within that dog.

Microfilaria inside the dog, made by mating, does not make more adult heartworms. The mosquito is required for that. Even if this now-infected dog is not treated with the awful arsenic Immiticide, the adult heartworms can and will die off within two years, if no more adults are added to its system. During this time, natural methods can and will work easily and rid the dog of the adults it has, and keep others from forming"

A natural product such as HWF by Amber Naturalz, will help maintain a healthy & clean enviroment around the heart. Supporting a normal detoxification process HWF helps maintain a healthy circulatory system, eliminating foreign substances.

There are other considerations when choosing protection methods against heartworm. Feeding a species-appropriate diet, limiting vaccinations to strictly necessary only, using natural flea & tick repellents, and avoiding a stressful home environment will all contribute to a stronger immune system ready to protect, naturally.