I’m almost scared to say yes. But with domestic cats and the most common parasites that we see, yeah. I’m going to say yes. With the parasiticide and de-wormers and preventative medications on the market nowadays, usually with domestic animals and cats. in particular—if they have intestinal worms, there’s going to be a drug that can treat it right now. So yes, that would be my somewhat short answer.

Probably the most common method is what’s called a fecal-oral route. And yes, it’s exactly like it sounds. They have to ingest feces orally to obtain it. And let me be more precise. It’s not just any feces; it’s the feces of an infected animal. And in many cases, those fecal eggs or those parasite eggs in the feces have the larvae for a day or two before they become infectious. It’s not a hard thing to do. I mean, it happens all the time. And it’s not always as deliberate as the cat walking up and eating a pile of stool. I know that sounds disgusting, but they do it. Especially dogs. But it can be as simple as they just stepped in it.

Maybe they share the same litter box as a housemate or littermate. And that animal has it. They go in the same litter box. They’re scooting around in there, and they get some on their paw. Well, what’s a cat going to do? The first thing that cats will do when they get anything on their body is they’re going to stop, and they’re going to lick it off. They’re going to groom themselves. So, boom, you just got infected that way. So that is the most common reason.

The only exception I would give to those, if we’re talking about all the intestinal parasites, is tapeworms, and that’s something we commonly see. The most common thing that we see is dipylidium caninum. That’s a tapeworm from fleas. So they have to ingest a flea. Not feces, but a flea. The other type of tapeworm is echinococcus, and the last name is granulosum, I think. But that is something that they usually get from eating the host animal, which is mice. So sometimes you’d have a mouse or cat, maybe a barn cat, something like that. And they ingest a mouse that is happening to harbor this type of tapeworm; they can get it that way.

Yeah, they can. It’s tough because where are they going to get it? Where are they exposed to the feces of an infected animal if they’re 100% indoors? It’s retty rare. The most common thing would be those tapeworms that we mentioned. That is the most common thing that we see, the most common parasite in cats that are indoors. It doesn’t take much for a flea to come inside. And then again, the way they groom themselves, they’re going to probably ingest it. And then they can break with tapeworms after that.

The most likely other scenario I would think is if you introduce a new cat into the household. So you can have this new one that comes in, and little typhoid Mary brings it into the healthy cat that’s in the house. And that’s what happens. So if you get a new animal introduced to the house, always get them checked at the vet first. Get a good stool sample done first. And then if they are clean, it’s okay for everybody to intermingle and hopefully live happily ever after.

Flea control. Can I give you a two-word answer? Flea control. You control it accurately for fleas. And they won’t get tapeworms that way. So you should be good to go if you do proper flea control.

Proper preventative measures. Again, if you introduce a new cat into the house, have that checked and de-wormed properly. But preventative measures are products like Revolution Plus, Revolution, and Advantage Multi for cats. They’re flea control, some of them do ticks, they do intestinal worms, they do ear mite—all the things that cats can bring or spread amongst themselves. If you treat them accordingly and keep them on an adequate preventative regularly, you should avoid any problems with that.

Yes. So intestinal parasites can be passed on to people. Immediately my mind goes to … Okay, say an animal, a cat, in this case, has roundworms. They shed roundworm eggs in their stool. I think it’s two days or so, give or take a little bit. But let’s say that in two days, those roundworm eggs become larvae, and that’s infective larvae. Two things can happen. And thankfully, it’s not something we see in adults. Unfortunately, it can be seen in children, because they don’t always have the same hygiene as we do as adults. But number one, if you were walking around barefooted and maybe you have a cut or any kind of defect on your skin, an abrasion, anything that the skin barrier is compromised, and you step in a pile of infected roundworm poop, that can penetrate the skin, and cause cutaneous lesions. It’s called cutaneous larval migrans. But that is something that you will see. And that happen to an adult or a kid.

You can see what’s called ocular larval migrans. And there’s another version called visceral larval migrans. They are when an infective roundworm larva is ingested, usually orally. And yes, I’m talking about people the same way. Maybe you were handling the cat’s stool. You were cleaning the litter box. You didn’t wash your hands properly. If the stool is ingested, it can migrate to those areas, the eye, or your internal organs. And those roundworms will migrate right through specific organism and leave little fibrous tracks. It’s a mess. It’s a nightmare, and you don’t ever want to deal with it or have to deal with it in your kids. The ocular version can cause blindness. And it’s permanent—irreversible blindness.

How do you prevent all this scary stuff? You take your cat to the veterinarian, you get them checked, you get them de-wormed, and you keep them on a proper preventative. And we don’t worry about it.

That’s a good question and one that I think has gotten lost in the shuffle over the years. The answer to the question is, no, they’re not very common in cats. And there’s a couple of reasons why. First off, I want to share with you some figures, just to impress upon you how much of a different disease this is in dogs and cats. First off, if you took 100 dogs and gave them heartworm disease in a lab, you would pretty much have 100% of those dogs test positive for heartworms in a matter of a few months. This is because dogs are the natural hosts for heartworm disease. Cats are not, but they can contract it. The same study was presented to me as if you took 100 cats and exposed them to heartworms; you’re probably going to get anywhere between 5 and 15 of those guys come up positive. This is because they’re much more naturally resistant to the disease.

The other thing that I always thought was interesting, in dogs, especially in larger dogs, it’s not unusual to have a considerable population, 20, 30, maybe even more than that, worms that reside in the heart of a dog. Whereas in cats, it’s much smaller. One or two worms in a cat, and you typically have a pretty significant, I would argue, life-threatening infection in a cat.

It’s not common for that reason. Cats are naturally resistant to it to some degree, but I would also argue that it is a much more serious disease if they do contract it.

Respiratory issues—again, being a more serious condition in cats and how it normally presents, I guess you could say similar to dogs, it takes fewer worms to cause these. That’s the most common thing that I see. A cat that might come in for hacking, coughing, maybe even open mouth breathing, or perhaps poor color. Maybe the cat was running around playing or just jumping around a typical day, and all of a sudden just collapsed, acute collapse. It usually presents as either cardiovascular or respiratory signs in a cat.

Every once in a while, you’ll see vomiting, although I personally have not seen a cat come in for vomiting and then later be diagnosed with heartworms. It’s always been the respiratory signs that I have picked up on.

In my experience, I’m going to say no, because again, most of the medications I’m using to prevent are combination medicines that also do fleas, ticks, ear mites, heartworms, intestinal worms, and those kinds of things. I use things like Revolution, Revolution Plus, and Advantage Multi for Cats. Those are all things I’ve used. Full disclosure in answer to that question, yeah I have seen some cats that don’t like it when you put it on. They act very irritably, and they may even get a little patch of hair loss in that area because you’re putting it on the back of the neck. I’ve seen those kinds of side effects, but it’s not specific to the heartworm preventative that’s in it. Many of those products may be alcohol-based because that helps them to absorb through the oil layer in the skin and be absorbed in the bloodstream. I think more side effects have to do with the liquid itself or the carrier that the drug is in, and perhaps not the drug itself.

Any time you put a chemical in or on an animal, you always have the risk of there being a reaction to that animal, but it’s not something that I routinely see in cats.

I’ve tried. I don’t like to be grim, but I’m going to be honest with you, my experience with cats that come in and we can confirm a diagnosis, it very seldom ends well for that cat, in my experience. So, again, that’s why I’m saying preventing it is so much more effective and wise to do, rather than playing Russian Roulette with the possibility that they might get it.

To try to answer the question perhaps a little bit more accurately, yes, I’ve attempted to put animals on, say Prednisone, or things like that. But, unfortunately, it usually has a very limited effect. So you want to prevent this disease in cats before it ever gets a foothold because your treatment options are very limited.

One final thing I’ll add, anybody that’s had a dog that’s perhaps had the disease, maybe even was treated for the disease, that drug is not effectively labeled, nor used for cats. It’s just a much worse scenario with cats if they do contract it. So do your best to prevent it. Choose whatever vet product you and your veterinarian discuss and what you think works best for your cat, but prevention is worth every bit of treatment down the road. Believe me; you don’t want to go that route.