Prevalence and intensity of canine gastrointestinal helminths in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh

The present work was performed to survey the gastrointestinal (GI) helminths and their intensity in dogs at Jabalpur. Out of 325 faecal samples, 300 were collected from the dogs brought to University Veterinary Clinics and 25 from stray dogs of Jabalpur. The overall prevalence of GI helminths was 27.08%. Single parasitic infections (23.7%) were more common than mixed infections (3.38%). Ancylostoma caninum infection was predominant (17.84%) followed by Toxocara canis (2.15%), Dipylidium caninum (1.54%), Toxascaris spp. (0.31%), Gnathostoma spinigerum (0.92%) and Taenia spp. (0.31%). Breed was found to be a significant factor with respect to overall prevalence of GI helminths and specific prevalence of A. caninum (p<0.01). The faecal egg count, determined as mean eggs per gram of faeces (±SEM) for the various helminth species in descending order were A. caninum (987.00±66.92), Taenia spp. (600±0.00), Toxascaris spp. (350.00±76.47), T. canis (307.14±74.23), D. caninum (280.00±91.49) and G. spinigerum (133.33±33.33).