Remembering your pet's medications and heartworm preventatives are vital to maintaining the health, and well-being, of your pet. Monthly heartworm prevention (or those administered by a veterinarian every 6 months) must be given on schedule to maintain their effectiveness.

Heartworm medications work by eliminating the immature (larval) stages of the heartworm parasite. Unfortunately, in as little as 51 days, immature heartworm larvae can grow into an adult stage, which cannot be effectively eliminated by preventives. Because heartworms must be eliminated before they reach adulthood, it is extremely important that heartworm preventives be administered strictly on schedule. Administering prevention late can allow immature larvae to grow into adult worms, which is poorly prevented.

Your pet relies on you to provide them with the proper dosage at the proper times. Here are some tips and tools to remind you when to administer your pet's heartworm prevention medication:

• Pick an easy date to remember - like the 1st of each month!
• Add a reminder into your calendar
• Many heartworm prevention manufacturers have dosage and refill reminder programs:
  • Heartgard offers email reminders
  • Elanco products such as Trifexis, Interceptor, Comfortis, Cheristin and Credelio offer email & text reminder
  • Simparica offers free emails and/or text messages to remind you when it's time to give your pet their medication
  • Merck (Tri-Heart plus Bravecto flea/tick prevention and others) offers email reminders and their MyPet Reminders app
  • ProHeart6 provides email & text reminders