If you miss a dose of your heartworm prevention for your dog, get them back on prevention ASAP—speak to your veterinarian. Six months from that time that you missed is really the only time that we're going to be able to detect whether or not your dog was infected during that period. Nonetheless, if you want to be sure, you can get a heartworm test done then.

You can help reduce the mosquitoes present by limiting their access to getting inside, such as having a screened-in door. At the end of the day, however, they're still going to be present, so that's why prevention is key.

If your dog misses one dose, I am fine with restarting the following month. If you miss more than one dose, please give us a call so we can assess your dog's risk, how many doses were missed, and whether or not we need to repeat a heartworm test prior to resuming prevention.

No, there's really nothing that I know of that can prevent heartworm that is not a prescription FDA-regulated product. So I wouldn't recommend anything like that.

I cannot say for sure if there are. I'm sure that there are, but I don't know what they are, and I definitely don't recommend them.

Absolutely. Kind of back to that point of prevention not being 100%, we recommend an annual heartworm test, whether it be during your annual wellness blood work or that snap test. The latter is a very quick test involving getting just a few drops to rule out that they don't have heartworm disease. If they do, the treatment's very different than prevention.

No prevention is 100%, but the ones prescribed by your veterinarian give you your best chance of preventing something like heartworm disease. And a lot of those are actually backed by multimillion-dollar companies that really believe in research and their products.

Some are labeled for around six to eight weeks, so that first puppy vaccine appointment is a great time for a lot of things.

Some people do treat their yard for mosquitoes, which can be helpful in reducing the mosquito population and, therefore, the risk. But all it really takes is one mosquito that carries heartworm larva to bite your dog and cause heartworm disease. So, again, even if you're doing the best treatment possible, even if you think there's a minimal risk of exposure to mosquitoes, I would recommend monthly heartworm preventative.

The actual components or the medical components of it may differ, depending on the type of prevention that you're giving. But like I said earlier, the heartworm prevention types are oral, topical, or injections by your vet.