LACK OF TRANSMAMMARY TRANSMISSION OF STRONGYLOIDES-STERCORALIS FROM APREVIOUSLY HYPERINFECTED BITCH TO HER PUPS

Larvae were not found by Baermann examination of the gastrointestinal tract or parenteral tissues of 7-day-old pups whelped by a bitch previ ously hyperinfected with Strongyloides stercoralis and either suckled on the bitch or fed an artificial milk diet. In sharp contrast, experi mentally infected comparable pups yielded larvae when examined by the same technique. Additionally, although the bitch transiently shed larv ae in the feces prior to whelping, larvae were not found in filtered a liquots of the bitch's milk from day 1 to day 7 after whelping, wherea s they were recovered from filtered aliquots of S. stercoralis-seeded milk samples. These results suggest that transmammary and transplacent al transmission of the parasite does not occur in dogs.