Animal Welfare Professionals

Hi all~ 

I'm with a breed-specific rescue group in Texas. 

For our adoption applicants, we want to confirm a stable history of heartworm prevention with their current/past dogs. However, we're shocked by the number of dog owners who don't think it's necessary at all or  only protect their dogs sporadically.

We regularly try to push out reminders to help educate our social media followers.~ e.g., a photo of a heart filled with worms. ((BARF... but it works)) or documenting our own foster dogs who have to endure heartworm treatment. We also have pulled content from American Heartworm Society.

What other tools, graphics, resources, etc., can we use to help raise awareness of this topic?

Thanks for your help!

P.S. Looking forward to meeting some of you at the Best Friends conference in Houston next month! 

I worked at a shelter for 12 years and a vet clinic for 10. One of the best things I found to get people to start preventatives was talking about the cost difference between the preventatives vs. the treatment. Plus there's the fact that if your pet gets heartworm they will die from it if left untreated. And if you do the treatment there's a chance they could die anyway.  Compared to the cost and risk of treatment, monthly preventatives seem like the obvious choice. 

Hi all~ 

I'm with a breed-specific rescue group in Texas. 

For our adoption applicants, we want to confirm a stable history of heartworm prevention with their current/past dogs. However, we're shocked by the number of dog owners who don't think it's necessary at all or  only protect their dogs sporadically.

We regularly try to push out reminders to help educate our social media followers.~ e.g., a photo of a heart filled with worms. ((BARF... but it works)) or documenting our own foster dogs who have to endure heartworm treatment. We also have pulled content from American Heartworm Society.

What other tools, graphics, resources, etc., can we use to help raise awareness of this topic?

Thanks for your help!

P.S. Looking forward to meeting some of you at the Best Friends conference in Houston next month! 

Thanks, Marilyn! Do you have any social media graphics that you use for this purpose? If so, are you willing to share them to help stir our own creativity?

I worked at a shelter for 12 years and a vet clinic for 10. One of the best things I found to get people to start preventatives was talking about the cost difference between the preventatives vs. the treatment. Plus there's the fact that if your pet gets heartworm they will die from it if left untreated. And if you do the treatment there's a chance they could die anyway.  Compared to the cost and risk of treatment, monthly preventatives seem like the obvious choice. 

Hi all~ 

I'm with a breed-specific rescue group in Texas. 

For our adoption applicants, we want to confirm a stable history of heartworm prevention with their current/past dogs. However, we're shocked by the number of dog owners who don't think it's necessary at all or  only protect their dogs sporadically.

We regularly try to push out reminders to help educate our social media followers.~ e.g., a photo of a heart filled with worms. ((BARF... but it works)) or documenting our own foster dogs who have to endure heartworm treatment. We also have pulled content from American Heartworm Society.

What other tools, graphics, resources, etc., can we use to help raise awareness of this topic?

Thanks for your help!

P.S. Looking forward to meeting some of you at the Best Friends conference in Houston next month! 

Hi all~ 

I'm with a breed-specific rescue group in Texas. 

For our adoption applicants, we want to confirm a stable history of heartworm prevention with their current/past dogs. However, we're shocked by the number of dog owners who don't think it's necessary at all or  only protect their dogs sporadically.

We regularly try to push out reminders to help educate our social media followers.~ e.g., a photo of a heart filled with worms. ((BARF... but it works)) or documenting our own foster dogs who have to endure heartworm treatment. We also have pulled content from American Heartworm Society.

What other tools, graphics, resources, etc., can we use to help raise awareness of this topic?

Thanks for your help!

P.S. Looking forward to meeting some of you at the Best Friends conference in Houston next month! 

#MarketingandSocialMedia

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Deirdre Jack
Lone Star Bulldog Club Rescue
dfwbulldogrescue.org


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Keeping the dog on HW prevention is in our adoption contract -- and their history of doing so is part of our pre-adoption vet reference check.  We talk about it during adoption.

Aside from the cost of HW treatment, we also discuss how hard it is on the dog, and the fact that we've known several dogs who died during treatment, despite the vet doing everything right.    The fact that the dog has to survive three very expensive injections of an arsenic-based compound during treatment tends to sober people.  I also describe what it looks like when a dog goes Caval in end-stage HW disease -- it's a God-awful way for a dog to die.

Even in the high-HW regions of the South, there is an economically disadvantaged population that thinks that "worms" are only "intestinal" worms, and doesn't understand that heartworms are not treated by giving the dog dewormer.   This requires education.   This population is likely to adopt through open-adoption shelters (municipal facilities) on low or no-fee weekends.  I used to volunteer at one of these facilities and had many such conversations.   Once educated, their biggest barrier is cost -- regular vet exam fees, heartworm test fees, vet clinic product mark-up.  They love their pets but don't have the money to go to a "regular" vet.    In some cases, even having a vehicle to take the dog to the annual exam is a challenge.   They are more likely to buy HW meds directly from the shelter than from a community vet,  and would be likely to be interested in generic ivermectin tablets that are very low cost (e.g., Iverhart, TriHeart Plus, etc.), esp. if offered by the shelter at the time of adoption.   I used to write down the names of the cheapest local "discount" vet clinics, the stores with low-cost pop-up vax weekends, and the websites where they could buy very cheap prevention -- having a handout would make a lot of sense!

I've long thought that shelters serving economically challenged populations should get grants to wrap a year's supply of HW prevention into the the adoption -- and offer community vetting clinics for alumni if at all possible to help people access HW tests, vax boosters, and very low-cost prevention.   Low-cost annual clinics are essential for preserving access since HW meds are not OTC.

In Northern areas, there is an opposite problem of affluent holistic-favoring adopters who are likely to adopt from breed rescues or shelters that do transports of dogs "with a story."   They're afraid of "putting poisons in the dog" with products from "big Pharma."   They need education on how much worse the arsenic-based HW treatment is as a "poison" than the low-dose preventions, as there is no viable holisitic HW prevention at this time. 

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Maggie Thomas
President
Red Stick German Shepherd Rescue

Original Message:
Sent: 07-04-2023 07:21 AM
From: deirdre jack
Subject: Heartworm prevention awareness tools?

Hi all~ 

I'm with a breed-specific rescue group in Texas. 

For our adoption applicants, we want to confirm a stable history of heartworm prevention with their current/past dogs. However, we're shocked by the number of dog owners who don't think it's necessary at all or  only protect their dogs sporadically.

We regularly try to push out reminders to help educate our social media followers.~ e.g., a photo of a heart filled with worms. ((BARF... but it works)) or documenting our own foster dogs who have to endure heartworm treatment. We also have pulled content from American Heartworm Society.

What other tools, graphics, resources, etc., can we use to help raise awareness of this topic?

Thanks for your help!

P.S. Looking forward to meeting some of you at the Best Friends conference in Houston next month! 

#MarketingandSocialMedia

------------------------------
Deirdre Jack
Lone Star Bulldog Club Rescue
dfwbulldogrescue.org


------------------------------

Hi all~ 

I'm with a breed-specific rescue group in Texas. 

For our adoption applicants, we want to confirm a stable history of heartworm prevention with their current/past dogs. However, we're shocked by the number of dog owners who don't think it's necessary at all or  only protect their dogs sporadically.

We regularly try to push out reminders to help educate our social media followers.~ e.g., a photo of a heart filled with worms. ((BARF... but it works)) or documenting our own foster dogs who have to endure heartworm treatment. We also have pulled content from American Heartworm Society.

What other tools, graphics, resources, etc., can we use to help raise awareness of this topic?

Thanks for your help!

P.S. Looking forward to meeting some of you at the Best Friends conference in Houston next month! 

#MarketingandSocialMedia

------------------------------
Deirdre Jack
Lone Star Bulldog Club Rescue
dfwbulldogrescue.org


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