The adult Tapeworm lives in the small intestine of dogs and cats. It sucks onto the wall of the small intestine with its mouth, whilst its tail end is free to move around in the intestinal lumen. Tape worms regularly shed segments from their tail ends which are around 5-8mm in length. These segments can be found in an infected dog’s faeces or sometimes “crawling” around the anal region. Segments can emerge from your dog’s anus whilst your dog is sitting or lying around in the house, it is by no means a purely outdoors thing! Segments of Tapeworm can look like grains o rice or small segments of fettucine pasta. Eggs are released from the segments of tapeworm, which are in turn ingested by flea larvae. Flea larvae can live in a range of environments, ranging from in your home’s carpet or between floorboards, to your dog’s kennel and bedding and even in the soil of your garden.
The flea larva is the intermediate host for the tapeworm. As the flea larvae develops into an adult flea, the tapeworm lives inside it. When the flea becomes an adult, it will jump onto a dog to feed. As the dog scratches and grooms itself with its teeth, it can inadvertently ingest adult fleas. If the adult flea is infected with tapeworm larvae, then the dog will now become a final host to the tapeworm. The entire lifecycle of Dipylidium caninum only takes 3 weeks to complete.
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