Tick-borne diseases of dogs and cats causing vasculitis leading to multisystemic dysfunction often characterized by thrombocytopenia and hyperglobulinemia.

Filarial nematode infection of dogs and cats – Dirofilaria immitis – adults (female worms up to 30 cm in length) live in pulmonary arteries causing respiratory, cardiac, and in some cases, renal disease.

Parasites are major causes of respiratory tract disease in the dog and cat. Recent advances in therapy of these diseases have been made providing the practicing veterinarian with a more rational treatment modality. This review will discuss the biology, diagnosis, disease, and treatment of respiratory parasites (protozoan, nematode, trematode, and arthropods) of the dog and cat emphasizing chemotherapeutics.

Sandfly vectors (not in US) transmit flagellated parasites into the skin of a host, where it often localizes in the cat. In dogs, there is invariably spread of the parasite throughout the body to most organs, although renal failure is the most common cause of death.

Giardia, cryptosporidia, and tritrichomonas.

Protozoal disease (genus: Babesia) of dogs and cats where merozoites (piroplasms) infect RBCs.

Parasites are minor cause of nasal disease in dogs and cats. However, they should be added to a differential diagnosis list of nasal disease. This review will discuss the biology, diagnosis, disease, and treatment of these parasites, and discuss the differential diagnosis, and the methodology for treating at least one differential diagnosis, that of nasal aspergillosis in dogs and cats.

Infection occurs when infected feces of a vector (Triatomin?, commonly called kissing or assassin bugs) are deposited in a wound (bite site of vector) or mucous membrane, or when a dog eats an infected vector (shown to occur in opossums and raccoons). Raccoons fed infected meat do not get infected so dogs probably not infected by eating meat from intermediate hosts in which the organism is sequestered in muscle. Transmission by contaminated blood transfusion also occurs.

Parasites are major causes of respiratory tract disease in the dog and cat. Recent advances in therapy of these diseases have been made providing the practicing veterinarian with a more rational treatment modality.