Does my dog have hook worms? It is very possible that your dog has hook worms. I am writing this story to inform you to be able to save you dog. I have a dog named Taz and because of hook worms he was very close to death because of it. Hook worms multiply very fast and what they do is take all the blood from your dog (or other loved animal) and eventually get to where your dogs body cannot keep up and make enough blood. There is a few signs to tell if your dog has hook worms but these signs can also mean something else is wrong with your dog, so make sure not to jump to conclusions but at the same time you do need to be aware what hook worms are, what they do, how to prevent them, or how to take care of them if your dog gets them.
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I am writing this to inform you so that you can save your dog, like I almost did not save my dog, he was down to his last breaths and we got lucky and the good Lord told me to just take him to the vet, which I took the feeling to heart and went to the vet.
First of all my dog Taz is always very excited, likes to bark and in other words is all around crazy, which is how he got the name Taz which I knew to name him the very first time I met him when he was very, very young. First Taz started getting “lazy” did not want to come 
around when i called him, instead he would slowly walk over to me and then walk away and lay back down, I thought it was some kind of dog depression, I figured I would give him some new chew sticks and play with him a bit and he would snap out of it, well that was not the case…..
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The next day I noticed then he would not even come to me when I called him, so I thought maybe a good hair cut and bath will solve the problem and make him feel brand new, As I started to give him a haircut I noticed he just wanted to lay down and did not want to stand up or even sit for me to cut his hair, and all of my dogs are usually crazy while getting a hair cut, they typically do not just lay down right off and deal with it, so that is when it really hit me something is wrong with my dog and it cannot be something good…. Later that day after talking on facebook to one of my good friends who raises dogs and knows tons about them, and multiple calls to my grandma who has been around quite a few dogs in her life time, both seemed worried when I told them everything that had been going on and how Mr. Taz seemed to be going down hill pretty fast, and something was not right and it became clear this was something he would not just snap out of…. A few hours later I then made the 40 minute trip to the veterinarian and was holding Taz on my lap very tightly because I really felt like he was going to just die on my lap, he was going downhill so fast. On the way there I thought to check his gums because checking a dogs gums and nose is something that always seems to be important with a dogs health. When I checked his gums my heart dropped and I knew right then something was very wrong with him. His gums were almost pearl white, which is NOT good at all! White gums means your dog has lost blood either internally or externally.
You can see in this picture I found online how the dogs gums are white and it talks about how the dog has blood in its stools (poop) 
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At that time we were just miles from the Vet’s office where we waited while minutes seemed like hours to me for the vet to arrive at the office. The vet seen him and knew right off that he was sick just by looking at him. He then took a swab of poop from right inside his rear end and immediately did testing on it, again as I was very worried these 5 minutes seemed like an hour… The vet then came in and said “Come in this room, you have GOT to see this, your dog should be fine now that we know what the problem is but this is the WORST case of hook worms I have ever seen in over 30 years of being a vet!” He said it appeared that Taz was acting fine before and playing it off cool, but once he had lost so much blood to the hook worms they started multiplying fast and Taz’s health started to decline very quickly. He showed me under the microscope what was in Taz’s poop. It was so many hook worm eggs and larvae that is blew my mind, he said usually you will see a couple under the microscope, but what we seen appeared to be tons!
Hook worms live inside your dog and not on the outside so you cannot really check your dog for them like you can for fleas or ticks. You have to know by the symptoms or have a test done. The best way to prevent this is to use the proper medicine ahead of time. The thing I did not know is the wormer that you typically give your dogs to “worm them” does not work for hook worms, you need something different for hook worms which caught me off guard because I did not know that! The best thing you can get for hook worms is a 3 day treatment called “Panacur” It cost me 40 dollars for a few tubes of it to treat 3 of my dogs that are living together, even though the other 2 dogs which are Cocker Spaniels did not show any signs, but now is the time to go ahead and give them their treatment so the same sickness does not come over them. [wp_ad_camp_1]
Here is a picture of what hook worms look like.
And here is a picture that is a very very close look under a mircoscope zoomed in many times… Creepy right?? You do not want these things living in your dog!!
So the main symptoms are…
- Dog acting depressed and lazy
- Not eating
- Not drinking
- Just want to sleep and not act like he/she normally does
- Pale gums due to blood loss
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Since a dog cannot tell you what is wrong it is up to you to take care of your dog so I am writing this so you do not end up with the same problem as me or if you do you know what could be wrong and how you can fix the problem, but the best thing to do is prevent the problem!
2 days later as of now Taz is much better and we have been treating him with the Panacur, getting him to eat some meat since he does not really want to eat dog food, and since we got him to eat he has since been drinking water, he is still very weak but he is showing alot of improvement already within 48 hours from where he was just 48 hours ago.
A big thank you to –
Cindi Stump – Owner of Stump Farms
Donna Neighbors (Barkley) – My Grandma
Harland Sprouse DVM – Brookfield, Mo
I highly recommend Harland Sprouse DVM the vet I have been to multiple times in Brookfield MO He is very kind and very smart with animals!