I have a couple of 9 month old dogs and they are just now starting to get ticks.

What are effective methods to prevent these blood sucking parasites from infecting my canines?

I have heard "Frontline" is effective, anyone use it? (On your dogs!!!)

Any advice, store bought or home remedies, would be greatly appreciated.

Own 4 dogs - 3 greyhounds & a smooth collie. All get Heartgard (<-correct sp) & Frontline once a month. Frontline seems to be working well forall of them. Apply the appropriate dose (based on your dogs wt.) directly onto the skin between the scapular region on the upper back.

Takes a few secs for the skin to absorb, though it doesn't seem to absorb as easily with the greyhounds, & sometimes runs down their back a little. But, it still works.

I got a stray kitten last year that was loaded with fleas. It was to young to use Frontline, but I put it on my other cat, because it was starting to have problems with them too. Within a day or two, all the fleas in the house were deceased. If the stuff for dogs works anywhere near as well, I'd give it a try.

GOOD LORD!!! 2 is a nightmare. How do you keep up with 4 of 'em?

Anyway thanks for the advice.

Keep 'em coming.

I've been using Revolutionon my dog for heart worms, fleas and ticks and I haven't seen a flea or a tick.
Borg

The frontline works well for me.  Also, if they are confined primarily to just your yard, you need to treat your yard with a good insecticide.

Are you asking prevention or what to do if your dogs have a tick(S) embeded in their skin??

Once you discover a tick on your dog do the following.

A. Have him lay down/sit relax and give him a dog treat.

B. Soak a Q-Tip in nail polish remover, find the spot where the tick is and rub the nail polish remover all over the blood sucking parasite.

C. Wait

D. The chemical will fuck the tick up and make him unscrew his head from your dogs skin and croak.

E. After a few minutes go back to your pooch and remove the tick.

Now as far as prevention, im sure there are a few deterents but what the hell is that chemical doing to your dog that is repelling ticks??

Kinda like how Roaches can survive nuclear fallout but RAID kills them. I know humans die from nuclear radiation and im spraying RAID in my house!!!

I have used front line but, if your dog hangs out in the woods he is going to get ticks no matter what.

I know my great grandfather raised and hunted with beagles. They were outside dogs and he kept them in their own shed in the back of his house. He used to feed them garlic cloves with their regular chow. Supposedly worked like a charm for repelling fleas and ticks.

Hope this helps, 03 out!!

I've got two dogs, and both of them also get Heartguard and Frontline once a month. I've been using both these products for a few years, and never have had a problem with fleas or ticks. Every once in awhile you'll still find a tick on your dog, but it'll be dead.

Hope this helps.

Frontline works like a champ.  I'd be a lot more worried about what ticks do to your pals (and maybe your family)...[url]http://www.frontline.com/fleatick/tick/pet.html[/url]...than what Frontline might do to the dog.  I've got three who hunted with me for years in N TX with tons of ticks around & none of them ever had a tick.

You're in a 'low risk' area for lyme disease,[url]http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/lyme/[/url], but a lot of doctor's in low risk areas will treat for flu symptoms instead of lyme.  Make sure your dogs have their lyme shots up to date.

Rocky mountain spotted fever (don't open this link before a meal) [url]http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rmsf/index.htm[/url] is something you don't need, and neither do the dogs.

Garlic can work as a flea repellant for some dogs if fed regularly...I've got one dog who begs for it & the others have to have it crushed & disguised in their food.  Frontline once a month is a lot easier.  Use rubber gloves when you apply it, and try to keep the dogs out of water for 72 hours after application.

If you're in tick country, DEET will keep 'em away from you, don't use it on the dogs.  I've had good luck with DEET followed by powdered garden sulfur sprinkled over your socks.  Check yourself before you bed down for the night.

I didn't mean for this to come out as a rant lecture, but ticks are extremly evil little fvckers than can make you and your dog buddies real sick.  

-hanko

Edited to say use DEET on humans, not dogs.

We have 3 Great Danes and live in the country. We easily picked up to 30 ticks of each dog if they went into the woods, after using Frontline they would not have one tick. There were only 2 problems for us, one was we had to use two packages because they just don't make a 160-180lb container and the stuff runs out like clock work at 28-30 days. We no longer have to use it because we have fenced in all our land and the dogs don't have access to the woods. John

This cool wet weather has been a real big year for ticks...my Shepherd gets a couple a day...I use frontline..today she gets a flea and tick bath..

i use frontline on my german shorthair. it works great, you dont know how tempted i have been to, well, you know

Hmmm, think I I should give it a try myself? ;)

Please explain.

Frontline works well on my bullmastiff. I have never found a tick attached to him, ever. Good stuff.

yes please. you have us wondering. and thats bad.

Frontline works but in the south I bathe my dogs twice a week. So if you wash them alot it isn't as effective.

I use Adams flea and tick spray after every bath, never had fleas or ticks and Florida is lousy with them.

BTW, check inside of ear flaps a favorite tick hiding place.

No, no, no, no!!!!

[b]Do not use chemicals on your dogs that you would not use on your children![/b]

Heck, we're all mammals, you know! [:D]

[b]Don't put chemicals on your yard that you would mind your children walking on barefoot![/b]

Test yourself! Cut open a glove of garlic, put it in your sock, and then put your shoe back on.  How long is it before you start tasting garlic in your mouth? Smelling it on your breath?

Your mammalian body picks up everything though its skin!

So do your dogs.

So do your children!

Here's Howard Garrett's Organic recipe for dealing with fleas and ticks:

"[b]FLEAS AND TICKS[/b]

Spray the infested site with Garden-Ville Fire Ant Control formula (same as Garden-Ville Soil Conditioner) or any citrus oil, compost tea, and molasses mix.

Treat the site with beneficial nematodes. These are living organisms so use before the date deadline on the package.

Dust pet sleeping quarters, if necessary, with natural diatomaceous earth.

Bathe pets with herbal shampoos. The most effective products contain citrus (d-limonene) and tea tree oil (melaleuca).

Spray the site regularly with Garrett Juice.
Homemade Garden-Ville Fire Ant Control - mix one part compost tea, one part molasses, and one part citrus oil concentrate. Mix at 4-6 ounces per gallon of water for treating fire ant mounds.  Add 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar per gallon water"

See books and recipes at his website:[url]http://www.dirtdoctor.com/index.asp[/url]

My beagle is soon-to-be 13 years old and he hasn't had a flea or a tick in ten years!

Why?

I follow Howard Garrett's recommendations to the letter!

Scooter hasn't worn a flea collar since I started the 'Natural Way' program.

And he sleeps with Miz Hun and me!

Eric The(MaybeThat'sMoreThanYouWantedToKnow!)Hun[>­]:)]

You have WAAAAYYYY too much time on your hands!

;)

With 7800+ posts, I think you may be right, [b]Kar98[/b]!

Eric The(Now,IHaveToGoToThat'PinkFloydWebsite'AndP­lay'Time'Again!)Hun[>]:)]

I have found a mapp gas torch effective for eradicating ticks and fleas. [;)]

Seriously, I agree with ETH.  Avoid doing chemical warfare with them.  It's not good for the pet or the environment.

Thank you, [b]marvl[/b]!

If chemical warfare had worked, the fire ant would never have left Florida, or Georgia, or Alabama, Or Mississippi, or Louisiana, to get to Texas!

Ticks and fleas would have disappeared long ago.

But such treatments don't work!

Use beneficial nematodes to attack the ants, fleas and tick where they live!

By using diatomaceous earth (which are the tiny skeletons of diatoms), the body of the ant, flea, or tick is scratched, allowing it to leak itself to death.

By using d-limonene or other citric oils, the outer protective layer of the ant, flea, or tick is dissolved, causing it to leak itself to death.

Using each in conjunction with the other is best!

Eric The('BetterLivingThroughChemistry'?Think-'AgentOrange'!)Hun[>]:)]

My daugther is a Vet, (I get a kick out of saying that) I just called her with your question and the only thing she recommends is the Frontline stuff that a lot of people have recommended you to use, so there. take it from a Vet.

Hey, I tried this and it worked great!!! So well, in fact, that I'm going to use it for meals on those long road trips and when hiking, too.

Obviously I'll have to trim down those pizza slices, but the filet of sole fit perfectly.

I don't mean to sound like some tree-hugging environmentalist, but if chemicals were going to work, they would have already worked!

Note that the level of chemicals and the toxicity of the chemicals the 'experts' are recommending are a whole lot less then they used to be! Why?

'Cause these chemicals were counter-productive and the 'cure' was often worse than the 'disease'!

By going 'ballz to the wall' against the fireant, we wound up killing off any possible natural enemies they may have had!

But by using 'Mother Nature' to our advantage, we could control them a lot better than we have in the past.

Beneficial nematodes, against which the fireant has no defense, is the best defense that we may have against them.

We can make their lives Hell with such natural means as diatomaceous earth, citric oils, and tea oils.

And without the lasting impact of chemicals that will ultimately wind up in your children's drinking water.

To think that we worry about the amount of sugar that children ingest, but think nothing of letting them play barefooted on a lawn that chemically may resemble some field in Vietnam after a heavy dose of Agent Orange.

Do yourself and your children some good and go organic, totally.

Check out the Howard Garrett website, above, for more on this subject.

Eric The(Natural)Hun[>]:)]

Use Frontline.  It is expensive, but you can find it on the web for less than the vet will likely charge.  Also check with the vet before using it the first time.  Frontline won't necessarily kill ticks but it will keep them from biting the dogs.

GunLvr

OK, go ahead and use [b]Frontline[/b], why not?

The active ingredient in Frontline is fipronil, which is classified as a 'mildly hazardous' pesticide by the World Health Organization.

"Fipronil is an insecticide discovered and developed by Rhône-Poulenc between 1985-87 and placed on the market in 1993. Although effective against a variety of pests, there are concerns about its environmental and human health effects. Actively marketed in many industrialised and developing countries its, worldwide use is increasing."

"Fipronil is a member of the phenyl pyrazole class of pesticides, which are principally chemicals with a herbicidal effect. Fipronil, however, acts as an insecticide with contact and stomach action. It is sparingly soluble in water; is stable at normal temperatures for one year but not stable in the presence of metal ions [b]and is degraded by sunlight to produce a variety of metabolites one of which (fipronil-desulfinyl (MB 46513)) [u]is extremely stable and is more toxic than the parent compound[/u][/b]."

"Fipronil under the trade name [b]Frontline or Top Spot[/b] is also used to control fleas, ticks and mites on domestic animals and as a pour-on or dip for cattle to control ticks. In the UK, provisional approval for five years has been granted for fipronil use as a public hygiene insecticide."

"Fipronil is classed as a WHO Class II moderately hazardous pesticide and has a rat acute oral LD50 (the dose required to kill half a population of lab animals) is 97 mg/kg. It is less toxic to mammals than to some birds, fish and most invertebrates."

See the complete study of this pesticide at:[url]http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/actives/fipronil.htm[/url]

So, continue to use this 'mildly hazardous' pesticide on your dogs and cats, as you wish, but you and your children better start keeping away from them as much as possible!

Why not go natural and spare both yourself, your children, and your pets?

But that is [u]your[/u] choice, after all!

It might not bother you a lick, since Fipronil was just marketed beginning in 1994 or so in the U.S.

But just imagine what a lifetime of its use by your children might mean!

Eric The(Jeremiah-likeWarning)Hun[>]:)]