This insidious creature can cause serious health problems for cats and humans alike.

By Tom Ewing

Your cat can get into a lot of trouble — and a lot of trouble can get into it — if it insists on digging or rolling around in your neighbor’s petunia patch. For one thing, the neighbor isn’t going to like it. For another, the cat — while grooming itself after its messy frolic in the garden — may swallow some petunia-patch dirt containing roundworm eggs, perhaps thousands of them.

In most cases of roundworm infection, a cat can swallow eggs and harbor the larvae from which they develop without harmful consequences, since they can remain dormant for years, possibly throughout a cat’s life. But if enough of the eggs…

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