I'm dog sitting for a puppy, and I have an 8 month old healthy dog too, and this puppy clearly has worms. Owner forgot to mention it and is picking his puppy up in the morning. in the meantime, I'm hoping I can keep my dog from catching them.
It depends on what kind of worms they are..... There are 4 main types of worms that dogs get but primarily only 2 of them you really will see in the dogs stool.
Tapeworms-They are flat worms that have little lines on their backs, or they look like rice when they are broken up into segments and dried up. These are transmitted by a digestion of a flea. Which means her dogs has/had fleas. if the owner already treated her pet for fleas and got her dog dewormed, plus your dog is current on his monthly flea meds than you should be okay.
Roundworms- Look like spaghetti. Long round worms. These worms are transmitted fecal oral, the puppies can be born with them, and/or they can be in the environment (Soil, wild life). The eggs can live in the soil for years. (it is said that the female roundworms produce thousands eggs a day, gross!) But either way needs to be dewormed.
Whipworms can be seen in the stool but rarely. They look like a long piece of thread that has a one fat end. Typically they are seen under a microscope. Same with Hookworms are typically seen under a microscope.
Hookworms and Roundworms are two types of worms that people can get.
If your pet is on a monthly Heartworm medication- they are getting treated monthly for Rounds, hooks, and whips. The only one you will need to worry about will be tapes. But keeping up on a monthly flea medication will help prevent tapes.
You MUST pick up the pups poop as soon as they defecate or the worms will get in the soil and can still be transmitted to your pup. I would also spread lime in the poop area, some say this helps kill the worms. And a dose of de-wormer for your pup may also be a good preventative. I would be very cautious of accepting any other clients for several weeks and also give full disclosure to them. Best of luck.
I wouldn't accept a dog that has a transmittable illness if I owned a puppy. But I always get an emergency contact from the owner before boarding a dog.I tell owners it should be someone in town that can come get the dog Should something happen and i couldn't complete a booking.
I had this happen to me. I am fortunate I work at a vet clinic, I called the owner and told them and took their dog to be treated and left him in a run for the weekend. They paid the vet bill when they returned.