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Why is Ivermectin in dog heartworm meds if it's approved for cattle?

Updated On September 23rd, 2025

Pet's info: Dog | Mixed Breed | Female | spayed | 19 lbs

The article says the Ivermectin is only approved for use in cattle, but it is the key ingredient in many heart worm medications for dogs. I am confused. Is it approved for use in dogs through prescriptions such as Heartguard?

1 Answer

Most Helpful Answer

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Answered By Andrea M. Brodie, DVM

Veterinarian

Published on May 21st, 2018

Medications get approved after going through many tests. If the test for a certain medication preparation (e.g. Ivermectin comes in various oral pastes, injection solutions, chews, spot ons, etc) is done for a particular animal species only, then it will only be licensed for that. So Heart Guard chews would not be licensed for horses or cattle , as it was not tested for them to be protected against heart worms, but since it was tested on dogs to be effective against heart worm, it would be licensed for dogs.. Ivomec injection solution was tested against certain parasites in cattle and therefore would only be licensed for cattle, unless the company manufacturing the injection solution would test it on dogs against heart worm also, It's complicated. Some preparations of the same medication may be detrimental for one species , but not for another, yet the basic medication may be the same. I hope this helps with your query. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further. Please take the time to mark this question as helpful or not as it helps us to improve on the quality of our answers to other pet owners. Thank you kindly!

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