Internal Parasites

Description:	Class Notes on Internal Parasites of Cats and Dogs.
Category:	Veterinary
Created by:	BananaGirl05 on 2009-02-04

Question	Answer
Toxocara cati:	Infects all cats species. Rodents may be the intermediate host, but mostly they are the paratenic host. Cosmopolitan geographic distribution.
Intermediate host: Are very important in the development of parasites. The development actually occurs within the intermediate host.	Paratenic Host: Sometimes called the facultative intermediate host, pretty much this the bus for a parasite. They get on and off, no development stages occur within this host.
Lifecycle of Toxocara cati:	Larvae hatch in the stomach after the eggs have been ingested. Travel to the liver and lungs. Coughed up and swallowed. No transplacental transmission occurs, transmammary does. PPP is 3 weeks in younger cats.
Toxocaris leonina:	Non zoonotic. Simple lifecycle. All larvae follow a mucosal migration, developing in the mucosa of the small intestines, migrating to the intestinal lumen to mature. PPP is 56 to 65 days.
T. leonina continued:	No prenatal or transmammary transmissions. No age resistance. Egg ingestion or predation of infected paratenic host is only cats and dogs can become infected. Requires less time for infective stage to develop.
Trichuris vulpis:	Whipworm of dogs. Adult body is whip shaped anterior end is fine, hairlike and embedded in the wall of the large intestine or cecum. Egg is lemon shaped with a distinct plug at each end and contains a single cell when passed in feces.
Lifecycle of Trichuris vulpis:	Infective first stage larva develops inside the egg in about 1 month but does not hatch unless it is swallowed by a suitable host.Very resistant so that animals confined in contaminated enivronments tend to become reinfected after treatment
Trichuris vulpis continued:	May also pentrate the skin. Most canine whipworms infections are symptomless, but heavy infections can cause bouts of diarrhea alternating with periods during which normal stools are passed.
Trichuris vulpis contined:	Dirrheal feces often contain blood and mucous. PPP is 90 days. Parasite is very difficult to kill once it is entered into the body.
Capillaria:	Adult capillaia parasitize diverse epithelia of a very wide range of hosts. The adult body is small and although not whip shaped, somewhat resembles Trichuris. The eggs differ from those of Trichuris in detail.
Capillaria bohmi:	Nasal capillariasis a parasite of the frontal sinus of the fox. Eggs of C. bohmi can be distinquished from those of C. aerophilla by careful exam of the surface of the egg.
Capillaria bohmi continued:	C. bohmi egg is covered with tiny pits like a thimble surface, C. aerophilla surface is a network of branching ridges.
Capillaria putorii:	Parasite of small intestine of bear, hedgehog, raccon, swine, bobcat, and is occasionally found in domestic cats. (Generally causes little or no harm in the cat). Eggs must be differentiated from other capillaria species.
Capillaria hepatica:	Adult worms live in the liver of rats, muskrats, woodchucks, other rodents and a wide range of occasionally host including man.
Capillaria hepatica continued:	Eggs deposited by the female worms trapped in the hepatic tissue where for lack of sufficient oxygen the do not develop until the host is eaten.