Health & Medical

The vet said "lungworm" and I laughed, because my dog did not smoke and I was sure she meant something else. Then she showed me the X-ray of a chest that should have been clear, and the laugh went somewhere it would not come back from.

Angiostrongylus vasorum is a worm that lives in the heart and the major blood vessels of the lungs, and a dog catches it by eating the slime trail of an infected slug or snail, or a frog, or licking grass where one crawled. Mine was a spaniel who ate the garden, which is most spaniels, and she had swallowed the trail of a slug she never saw, and the worm set up home in her lungs, and the first sign was a cough I blamed on excitement.

The trouble with lungworm is that it wears the costume of ordinary things. A soft cough. A little tiredness. A nosebleed that seems to come from nowhere. Some dogs get no obvious sign until a blood clot forms and they collapse, because the worm messes with clotting, and that is the version that ends in the emergency room at midnight. My dog got the cough and the tiredness, and I would have missed it entirely if the cough had not lingered past a week and the vet had not listened to her chest and heard the crackle that should not be there.

How it actually gets found and fixed

The diagnosis is a combination of a blood test that looks for the worm's proteins and a sample that catches its larvae, and a chest film to see the damage. It is not a "wait and see" illness, because the worm does not leave on its own and the clotting problem can turn a small knock into a bleeding event. The treatment is a course of a specific wormer, the kind that actually kills this worm, given over weeks, with strict rest, because a dying worm load in the lungs is not the moment for a five-mile run.

The part that still bothers me is how close I came to doing nothing. The cough was mild, the dog was bright, and the slug was invisible, and the whole chain depended on a vet who took the cough seriously because she had seen lungworm before and I had not. Prevention is the real lesson, and the monthly product that covers lungworm is the thing I now never skip, because the worm is in the garden, the slugs are in the garden, and the dog is in the garden, and the maths is not in our favour.

What I tell other owners now

Do not dismiss a cough that lasts. Do not assume a wormer covers everything, because the common roundworm pill does not touch lungworm, and the label has to say it. Do not let a slug-eating dog go unprotected through the wet months, when the trails are everywhere. My spaniel came right, after the course and the rest and the vet's patience, and she coughs at excitement still, but it is excitement now, not a worm, and I know the difference because I learned it the expensive way, with an X-ray and a laugh I should have kept.

The aftercare is the part owners underestimate. The wormer course runs weeks, not days, and the dog must be rested, because the dying worms in the lungs are not the moment for a five-mile run or a swim, and the vet's rest instruction is the difference between recovery and a setback. Mine wore a lead in the garden and watched the others play, and the boredom was the cost of the cure, and the alternative was worse. The follow-up tests confirm the worm is gone, and skipping them because the dog looks well is how it comes back, because looking well and being clear are not the same thing with this parasite.

Prevention is the lasting lesson, and the product that covers lungworm is a monthly one that many owners do not realise they need, because the standard wormer they already use does not touch it. I now read the label for the word lungworm before I buy, and I keep the calendar, because the slug is in the garden every wet night and the dog is in the garden every day, and the only real protection is the one she cannot choose for herself. The X-ray I laughed at is the one I will never ignore again.

The cost of missing it is the part I cannot shake. A dog that presents with a clot, the late stage where the worm's effect on blood clotting turns a small knock into internal bleeding, is the dog in the emergency room at midnight, and the treatment then is harder, costlier, and less certain, and some do not come home. Mine was caught early by a vet who listened to a mild cough, and the cheap lesson was a course of tablets and some lead walks, and the gap between that and the midnight version is the entire argument for taking the soft cough seriously. The slug is in the garden. The X-ray is in the clinic. The choice to connect them is yours.