Heartworm disease is a serious condition that primarily affects dogs, who are infected when bitten by mosquitoes carrying the heartworm larva. Because heartworm is transmitted through mosquitoes, warm, humid climates like South Carolina are the ideal condition for the parasite to spread. In fact, South Carolina has the fifth largest incidence of heartworm disease in the country.
Once infected, heartworms lodge in the dog’s heart, lungs, and surrounding blood vessels, and continue to reproduce. The worms can cause lung disease, heart disease, and failure in other organs if left untreated for too long. Preventing heartworm is easy: dogs should be given monthly heartworm preventative that can be purchased at your vet or at Saint Frances. However, treating heartworm disease is much more costly and difficult. The treatment, even at our cost, runs $275 and takes 7 months from start to finish.
At Saint Frances, about 15% of the dogs that come into our shelter each year are already infected with heartworm disease. At a cost of $275 per dog, treating 400-500 dogs would cost the shelter over $125,000 a year– a significant price tag for a small, rural shelter with a limited budget! To keep our dogs healthy and adoption ready, Saint Frances relies on the compassion and generosity of our wonderful supporters to help us treat HW+ dogs. Please consider a gift to our Heart Healthy Program, which can be made from our Donate page, to help us treat and save these deserving dogs, and give them a fresh start in life.