I have had many dogs in my life and raised two litters of pups so I have a good idea what it looks like when a dog has worms.

Full story. Maybe two-three weeks ago we were on a walk and Clutch pooped. I picked it up as alway. On the bottom of one of his poops was one short white worm. I didn't see anything else and we monitored him and his poo. Nothing happened again so I thought it must have just been a one in a million chance and he pooped in a spot where there was already a worm.

I just got back in from our morning walk and there was another single worm on his poop. The worm is white and about half an inch long. There were no worms in the rest of his poop (I mushed it all up and looked) . 

Clutch isn't extremely hungry at all in fact he is the opposite. He is maybe eating half a cup of food a day which is down from a little over a cup. He has been doing this no eating thing for about a month.

If anyone can help me figure out what is going on I would be quite grateful. I am going to call the vet but I won't have a car to take him until Tuesday. 

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I have come to the conclusion that this is probably a tapeworm.

It may very well be a tapeworm segment.  The segments are seen on a fresh stool only and are on the surface of the stool, as you describe.  A stool check will not show tapeworms, as they do not reproduce through eggs, but I would bring a fresh stool sample to the Vet ( no need for the dog to go in, unless you need a weight check ), to make sure there are no other worms involved.  If it's tapeworms, that means that fleas are also involved, as the reproductive cycle of the tapeworm is through the flea, and you will have to look into that aspect as well.

The worm was just sitting on top of the poop so I'm guessing it is a tapeworm. It is hard to tell if it is segmented or not but they way it moves tells me it is not a round worm. Clutch has been quite interested in his butt (actually unusual for him) for the past week so it is more than likely a tape worm.

We went south over a month ago and brought home some southern fleas with us. We have been battling them with frontline, mycodex house spray, mycodex flea shampoo, daily brushing with a flea comb, as well as removal of all dog bedding and laundering of anything and everything that will fit into the washer but we are having very little luck in decreasing the population. 

You are not seeing the adult tapeworm, that is firmly attache inside the intestine of the dog, what you see is a segment (or several) that detaches from the adult.  This segment is what will continue the cycle through the flea at first.  To ultimately eliminate tapeworms, you must eliminate fleas.  I know what you are going through, I had this happen to me when I took home a stray ( who I kept and is now 14 and was well worth the effort :-)) and ended up with fleas and tapeworms....  It happened again after a trip to California with one of the dogs, when I had not used flea prevention as we were only to be gone a few days , big mistake!!!!  Hang in there, this too shall pass!

Thanks for the encouragement. It is nice to know that other people have conquered fleas! We are going to the vet on Tuesday. I saved the worm that I found today and the vet told me to put in in a little bit of water to keep it from drying out. 

If it's visible in feces it's more likely roundworms, but you'll have to take a stool sample and then get an appropriate worming schedule from your vet.

Sounds like tapeworm to me.

Sounds like a tapeworm.

Check with your vet when you go in about using Borax, or Boric Acid in any carpets and rugs.  If you have small children I don't recommend it but if you dont you can literally dry out the fleas.  Sounds gross but it works. I have had several apartments in Florida that had fleas and flea eggs in the carpet.  Each time I vacuumed, I spread the Boraz lightly into the carpet and brushed it in with a broom.  This s a fairly inexpensive treatment for rugs/carpets.  Please check with your vet first as I used it with cats and in my new home we have all tile!  YEAH.

 

Good luck with your treatment.

 

Even though Poopdeck is on a multi (heartworm fleas worms), which should take care of that, but he had the same thing.  The vet said it was a bad flea season and that sometimes they ingest a flea egg.  Go in to your vet or take in a fresh fecal sample; maybe it's  time to change your monthly treatment

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