What is the deworming schedule for puppies in India?

Start at two weeks of age, repeat every two weeks until eight weeks, then monthly until six months, then settle into the adult rhythm of a dose every three months. The early start is not caution theatre: roundworm larvae cross the placenta and arrive in the mother's milk, so a puppy can be infected before its eyes open. This is the CAPC-consensus protocol and it runs without testing first, because in puppies the infection is assumed.

How often should I deworm an adult dog?

Every three months is the standard Indian practice and matches what the combination products are labeled for. The more careful version adds a fecal egg count once or twice a year, which tells you whether the tablet is working or missing something a different drug would catch. Testing supplements the calendar for adults; it never replaces the puppy protocol.

Which dewormer is safe for dogs in India?

The standard combination tablets: Drontal Plus or Kiwof Plus (praziquantel, pyrantel and febantel) or Fentas Plus (fenbendazole and praziquantel), all labeled one tablet per 10 kg of body weight. What is not safe is albendazole, a human and livestock dewormer with documented bone marrow suppression and birth-defect risk in dogs. Fenbendazole is the safe member of that drug family for dogs.

Do pumpkin seeds or coconut oil deworm a dog?

No. Pumpkin seed has laboratory and rodent evidence, coconut oil less than that, and neither has been shown to clear a real infection in a real dog. As foods they are harmless. As dewormers they leave worms in place while feeling like action, and in a puppy that delay has a real cost.

Can I catch worms from my dog?

Yes, and hookworm is the one to respect. Its larvae develop in warm, damp soil and enter through bare skin, which is why children playing barefoot are the most exposed people in the house. Deworming the dog on schedule, picking up stools promptly, and footwear in the yard during the monsoon do most of the protective work.

My dog's stools are loose. Does that mean worms?

Not by default. Worms are one cause among many, and in India one of the commonest is milk: most adult dogs digest lactose poorly, the resulting soft stool gets blamed on worms, and a dewormer gets given for a problem the bowl is causing. If stools stay loose past a dose and a diet check, the useful next step is a fecal test, not another tablet.

Deworming Dogs in India: The Schedule, the Right Products, and the One Drug to Refuse

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Two facts organise everything about worms in India, and most deworming advice ignores both.

The first: hookworm leads every stray-dog survey the country has produced. The multi-city survey of stray dogs across four Indian cities found hookworm the most common intestinal parasite by a wide margin, and regional studies from Mathura to Chandigarh repeat the finding. This matters because hookworm is not a mild parasite. It feeds on blood, it can anaemise a puppy fast, and it is zoonotic: its larvae develop in soil and enter through bare human skin.

The second: worm transmission in India has a season. Hookworm larvae need warmth and moisture to become infective, which is precisely what the monsoon provides. The Chandigarh park-soil study found contamination peaking with the rains. June to September is the transmission window, and the doses on either side of it are the two not to skip.

Put those together and the standard Indian habit, deworming whenever someone remembers, is exactly backwards: the gap between doses quietly grows until the monsoon closes it.

The schedule

The worms that matter in India live in the intestine: hookworms, roundworms, whipworms and tapeworms, with hookworm leading every stray-dog survey the country has produced. Against them, the veterinary consensus (the Companion Animal Parasite Council's guidelines, mirrored by Indian practice) is a rhythm, not a reaction:

Age	Dose
2, 4, 6, 8 weeks	every two weeks
3, 4, 5, 6 months	monthly
From 6 months, for life	every 3 months

Puppies start at two weeks and repeat every two weeks to eight weeks, then monthly to six months; adults hold a quarterly rhythm for life.

Why so early? Deworming begins at two weeks of age, before any test can be useful. Roundworm larvae lie dormant in the mother's tissues, wake during late pregnancy, cross the placenta, and arrive again in the milk. A puppy can be carrying worms before its eyes open. This is also why the puppy protocol runs without a test-first option: the infection is assumed because it is nearly universal, and waiting for proof means waiting while a blood-feeding parasite works on a two-kilogram animal.

Missed a dose? Give one now and resume the rhythm from today. Nothing is doubled, ever. A newly rescued adult with no known history simply starts today, with one caution: killing a heavy burden at once is occasionally rough for a day or two. Soft stools and a quiet appetite are common; collapse or repeated vomiting is a vet visit.

The products, and the one to refuse

Indian pharmacies stock good combination dewormers, all labeled one tablet per 10 kg of body weight, rounded up to the next band the way vets round: an 18 kg dog takes two tablets.

Product	Actives	Covers
Drontal Plus	praziquantel + pyrantel + febantel	hookworm, roundworm, whipworm, tapeworm
Kiwof Plus	praziquantel + pyrantel + febantel	the same, the common Indian equivalent
Fentas Plus	fenbendazole + praziquantel	the fenbendazole route, gentler on young and sensitive dogs

Under five kilograms, tablets stop being honest arithmetic. Puppy suspensions are dosed in millilitres per kilogram of exact body weight, and that measurement belongs at the clinic scale.

The one to refuse is albendazole. It is a human and livestock dewormer that still gets handed across Indian counters as a cheap substitute, and it has documented bone marrow suppression and birth-defect risk in dogs. The fact that it usually goes fine is not a safety record, it is a survivorship record. Fenbendazole is the safe member of that drug family for dogs, does the same job, and costs nearly the same. There is no situation in which a dog parent standing at a counter should accept albendazole.

The monsoon, and who the worms reach next

Hookworm larvae hatch from eggs passed in stool and develop in warm, damp soil. Once infective, they enter a host through the mouth or directly through skin. For dogs that means paws and bellies; for people it means bare feet, which is why the most exposed member of an Indian household is usually a child playing barefoot in the yard.

Three habits do most of the protective work:

Hold the schedule hardest from May to October. The pre-monsoon dose clears burdens before peak transmission; the post-monsoon dose clears what the season delivered.
Pick up stools promptly. Eggs need days in soil to become infective. A yard cleared daily never becomes a reservoir.
Footwear outside during the rains, for the humans. Ordinary chappals defeat a parasite that enters through the sole of the foot.

Street contact and livestock proximity raise the pressure further; the studies are unambiguous that free-roaming dogs carry the heaviest burdens. That is an argument for keeping the rhythm exact and adding a fecal test, not for doubling doses.

Adults: test, don't guess

For an adult dog there is a more careful practice than dosing by calendar alone. A fecal egg count at any veterinary clinic is inexpensive and definitive: it tells you whether worms are present, roughly how heavy the burden is, and whether the drug you have been using is actually working. CAPC endorses one or two fecal exams a year for adult dogs, and they catch the cases a calendar cannot, like whipworm that shrugs off a product without febantel, or giardia masquerading as a worm problem.

Testing supplements the calendar; it does not replace it, and it explicitly does not apply to puppies, where prenatal transmission has already made the decision.

One diagnosis worth ruling out before any tablet: the bowl. Most adult dogs digest lactose poorly. A daily milk bowl produces exactly the loose stools that get blamed on worms, and the dewormer gets credit for a fix that lasts until the next bowl. The dewormer is not the fix there; removing the milk is.

The honest paragraph about natural dewormers

Pumpkin seed contains cucurbitacin, which paralyses worms in laboratory preparations and has shown effects in rodents and ruminants. That is the entire evidence base. No controlled study shows pumpkin seed clearing a patent infection in a dog, and coconut oil has even less behind it. As foods, both are fine. As dewormers, they are a way of leaving a blood-feeding parasite in place while feeling that something was done. In an adult with park-level exposure the cost of that feeling is low. In a puppy it is anaemia.

This library's standing rule applies: supportive at best, never a substitute.

Put the schedule on a calendar

The rhythm above is simple, and it still fails in most households for one reason: nobody writes it down. The deworming calculator maps this protocol onto your dog's actual dates, works out the tablet count from weight, flags the monsoon-window doses, and downloads the whole thing as calendar reminders. It prints every rule it uses before you enter anything, and it will tell you, in so many words, to confirm the drug and the dose with your vet.

Because that is the honest last word. This article names drugs and doses as education, not prescription. The two-minute conversation with your vet that confirms the product and the milligrams is cheap, and for pregnant dogs, puppies under two weeks, and any sick or underweight dog, it is the whole protocol.