Dogs Fleas/Tick Treatment Preventatives
**These are Veterinary Approved Flea & Tick preventives are for DOG USE ONLY!! NOT cats!!**
While most pet owners know all about fleas, many are not educated on the other main external parasite posing a risk to our pets as well as their pet guardians in the warmer months: TICKS!! Like fleas, ticks feed on the blood of their host animal such as your dog. While fleas don’t prefer human blood, ticks have no problem attaching to and feeding from a human host. So if your dog tracks in a few ticks into the home, the ticks can then make their way onto human hosts further transmitting bacterial disease (such as Lyme disease) not only to your dog, but to you and all members in the home as well!!
Ticks become active in the spring once the temperature reaches 4 degrees Celsius or warmer, but it’s never too early to start tick prevention!! Once we start seeing mild temperatures, your outdoor pets should start being treated with a tick preventative. Typically, if it has been a mild winter, tick preventives can be started as early as the month of March!!
You should also be checking your dogs over regularly for any ticks once it starts to warm up, especially if you take your dogs in the woods or walking on trails. Ticks prefer to stay close to the head, neck, feet and ears, so focus on these areas the most.
Ticks are larger than fleas and are visible to the naked eye. They are commonly found in wooded areas or in tall grass. Their bites are not usually painful. There are a few different types of ticks in our area that we are concerned about, including the brown dog tick, the American dog tick and the deer tick. The deer tick is the tick we worry about the most, because that is the tick that can carry and potentially infect you or your pet with Lyme disease. There are multiple other parasites and diseases that ticks can carry as well, which is the biggest reason why we want them removed from our pets as soon as possible. It can take several hours for an attached tick to transmit disease, so in most cases removing a tick soon after they bite will usually prevent any disease in your pet.
If you find a tick on your dog, do NOT use your own fingers to pull the tick off!! Speak to your veterinarian about how to have the tick safely removed. You can also book a Telemedicine consult with one of our veterinarians for assistance. Once removed, you may want to submit the tick to your local veterinarian for analysis. There are also products such as the "Tick Twister" that can be purchased from our online store.
