Red’s encounter with hookworm triggered worm week at Bedlam Farm, everybody got tested for heartworm and is now on monthly heartworm medication. I’ve always had some mixed feelings about heartworm medication, it is rare in the Northeast, it usually occurs here in rescue dogs brought up from the South. But if you live on a farm, it makes good sense to get this medication because all kinds of worms and parasites thrive around sheep and donkey and chicken feces, not to mention the Labrador love of eating chicken droppings.

Worms love farms, dogs love to eat things with worms in them.

I confess I was too short-sighted about this, so this week we have wormed up at the Cambridge Valley Veterinary Service, Panicure in powder form for the hookworm, heartworm blood tests (negative as usual) and heartworm medication which covers hookworm and some other worms that show up around here.

Frieda is great with me at the vet, I held her head in my arm for safety’s sake and Linda and Cassandra drew some blood. She didn’t make a sound and just let me hold her, she is a very good dog, she has come a long way. I remember the first time we took her to a vet, this was in Granville, N.Y., it was not pretty. Lenore of course wagged her tail throughout her blood test, they are all home and have taken their medications. In a few days we will be worm free here, and I will do the heartworm thing every year.