Fleas & ticks on my Mal??! Questions

Hello there,
Sorry to here of our tick problem though I think it sounds like the Breedia team have it sorted for you. I hope you get rid of them soon they can be terribly tricky little blighters.
Jane
xx

I tend to use Nexguard spectra tablets. i know its not natural, but they are very effective.

Ram, my vet, did not have any Bravecto last time so he left a Nexgard tablet - all I have to say to Tikva is "sweetie" and she shoots to me to get it, whether it is Bravecto or Nexgard!

The main reason I prefer Bravecto is the timing, Nexgard needing to be given monthly and not three-monthly.

Thanks! you know the more I think about it the more im just gonna get the Bravecto tabs. You give the dog 1 tablet & it lasts for 3mos. I wanna take her to my vet anyways for an overall check up. Thanks everyone for the info!

Nigredo has fleas. The Fipronil used to work but doesn't anymore. Capstar did nothing. Advantage/Advantix did nothing. Flea collars do nothing. He's miserable. I'm going to take him to the vet and see if they can do anything. I've had many medical and dental bills and really haven't had the money to bring him. I can't buy costly flea meds so I hope something else can be done. I've already tried costly treatments that didn't work. Fleas are rampant here and very hard to control. He's a big fat dog with a thick coat that they seem to love. Jade wears a flea collar and doesn't get many fleas. A few now and then. She doesn't itch. The cats use Advantage and they're flea free. It's just Nigredo.

Glad to hear you have made a decision
Hope all is well at the vets

I was always concerned that due to the thickness of coat you would easily miss a tick until it had been on a while. Everest still gets them usually (oddly) on her eyelids, im assuming its to do with reduced bloodflow and therefore less poison dose via the spectra. any others we find usually just come off much much more easily (given they are dead) than bitey live ones. also means you dont have to worry about dropping them on the carpet so much. Plus points as Malka mentioned, absoluely no problem in getting her to take them.

I know fleas & ticks are awful in my area too! until I can get Mila to my vet I've been feeding her chopped garlic to add in her food. So far shes eating it! Then I'm gonna get flea/tick dog shampoo & bath her too. Have you tried Bravecto tabs for dogs? My mom used it for her German shepherd & he never had a flea or tick! Plus 1 tab lasts 3 months. If you can get a Rx from your vet you can get it cheaper thru a place like PetMeds or another pet meds site. Hope you can find relief for your doggy!

We have over the years become very sceptical of the efficacy of using conventional Vaccinations and wormers on our dogs. If you research them online, ( a good source of articles are available on Dogs Naturally Magazine’s website ) then you will find that there are a lot of problems caused by conventional Vaccs. I wont go into them here, suffice to say it is down to you to do your research and decide for yourselves. I have made my mind up from research and from my own dogs. Dogs fed kibble (dry food) vaccinated with toxic chemicals, ingesting more toxic chemicals, as well as having more poured on their skin have been dying younger and younger from cancer. It doesn’t take a genius to make a link.

Oh I totally agree with you there! We go as natural as we possibly can. So far Mila has been eating her chopped garlic & once I get a (natural) flea/tick shampoo for her I'll give her a good bath (which thankfully she loves!). Its such a shame that these companies poison our food and our pet foods!

That is why I feed raw - the same food that I eat, the only difference being that I cook mine whereas Tikva has hers raw.

My last dog ate almost only Pedigree chicken canned food. It was all he would eat. He was thin all his life and lived to be almost 16. Was jumping and barking until the end. He was a Labrador mix. 60-70 lbs. He did die of cancer but it was sudden and attacked the bones in his face well after his 15th birthday. Not too many dogs in his breed category do as well as he did, regardless of feed.

I am more skeptical of magazines with their own agendas as a source of legitimate info. Where "holistic" vets make statements based off of "observation" with no data presented.

The one scientific study that I saw with actual data presented concluded that the medication was mostly safe, likely the same as how "most" holistic stuff is safe, but things can happen.

The EPA doesn't investigate how often "holistic" and "natural" methods fail on pets and cause injury, illness, or death. I suspect if they did (not possible), conventional methods wouldn't look so bad.

Keeping your dog healthy lowers his temperature which attracts less fleas? Really? The normal temperature for a dog is over 100°. Even on the lower scale of normal, the dog will still attract tons of fleas if there are tons of fleas in the area.

Ironically this was sitting in my inbox when I arrived into work this morning.

http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.co...rol&utm_content=safe-and-natural-flea-control

I know that this is the second time that I've mentioned this magazine, I'm not affiliated in anyway to it, it's just the only one that I've subscribed to email alerts.

An interesting read, thank you
There is so many article on the internet sometimes you don’t know if you are doing the right thing or not, don’t you agree ?
It’s the same with human diets and medication, it’s personal choice and we hope we make the right choice
I’m guessing too that what suits one dog doesn't suit another
What a mine field

@Witm8 - Tim, everyone is entitled to their own opinions as to what they believe suits them and suits their dogs.

I live in an area where we get a lot of dumped dogs from the nearest town. Dogs that parents give in to their children "mommy I want a puppy" and as soon as that puppy is no longer a cute little thing and is a large and demanding dog, living in an apartment block, the dog is driven to the nearest Moshav, Kibbutz or army base - and just dumped.

It is 90% certain that none of these dogs have ever been treated for internal or external parasites, and even though it is mandatory for dogs to have yearly rabies shots I doubt if any have had even basic puppy shots. Whenever any of them are picked up by the dog catchers - who have their hands full with all the dumped dogs on Moshavim and Kibbutzim in this region - possible 1% have even been microchipped.

My yard is unfenced - it cannot be - and my dogs have only been able to go out in the front yard on a 12m tether.

But these stray/loose/dumped dogs can, and do, get into my yard, bringing with them who knows what?

So the three dogs who I have had the pleasure of sharing my life with during the last 22 years, have always had their puppy shots, their yearly boosters, and their yearly rabies shots. And six-monthly worm pills. None of them have developed cancer. Yes, my beloved Pereg was severely epileptic but that had absolutely nothing to do with her vaccinations/worm/flea/tick treatments, which she carried on having even after she developed epilepsy.

Tikva, my current little one, also has to have a shot against Parkworm every three months, Parkworm having now travelled south to this area. She has Bravecto every three months, plus a Drontal Plus wormer every six months.

My choice.

There is no way I will risk her picking up a nasty from an un-vaccinated, un-wormed, un-flea/tick treated stray dog.

We all want to do what we believe is best for our dogs and what one chooses to feed is their choice, but as far as I am aware there is no ‘scientific evidence’ for these claims that complete feed is poisoning or causing cancer in dogs.

There are only anecdotal statements on both sides, there are pro’s and cons with all choices of food.

I don't do anything beyond routine grooming, but my dogs do not get fleas or ticks, (we do not have sheep, deer or bracken in this area, so I think that probably explains the absence of ticks). I did get an occasional flea on the Lurchers, probably rabbit, which could be caught and popped, but can't say that it was ever a problem. Unlike cat fleas, rabbit fleas do not live and breed on dogs anyway.
When I had Cavaliers and Löwchen, we had a Juniper bush in the dog run, no doubt it is an old wives tale, but it used to be said that Juniper repelled fleas. The dogs did like rubbing against it, but it was probably the sensation that they liked. There was just one Cavalier which (probably cat) fleas loved. If there were any fleas about - they would be on Jenny, but any evidence was easily spotted against a pearly Cavalier coat. Regular grooming means that things don't have time to develop into a problem.
These were two breeds that needed a lot of coat care, so they were groomed daily with an anti-tangle spray, and regularly bathed using good old Jeyes dog shampoo, and a coconut oil coat conditioner. They had a light dusting of flea powder underneath their bedding too. So many of our old trusted remedies have been discontinued as being unsafe these days, but it seems to me that they had a long history of doing far more good than they ever did harm, and were no worse than the high priced chemicals that have come to replace them.

We are entitled to our opinions. But we must never attempt to present our opinions as facts. There could be a myriad of reasons cancer rates may be higher.

For example, someone who believes in global warming can present the recent record breaking hurricanes and high temperatures and blame that for the increase in cancer.

And someone who believes that the radiation from indoor devices could present that pets are kept indoors way more often these days and that the radiation from the use of indoor devices are causing the cancer rates to rise.

Another could say modern day society is way worse with emissions. With all the extra cars and factories etc damaging the air quality, it could be the cause of increased cancer.

And yet another could blame the excess trash in landfills and the higher rates of waste products getting into all water and food supply, which could cause the increase.

All of those are only theories by people who believe a certain thing for one reason or another. Same goes for people who believe the cause of increased cancer is poor diet and vaccinations.

There's little to no proof in any of those cases, so we shouldn't force our opinions on others that the cause is definitely what we believe it is.

Flea infestation is always a huge topic. I could argue that diatomaceous earth is somehow safe for eating, even marked as 'food grade'. It's a good insect repellent though, works with ants, cockroaches and spiders. I could also argue on garlic as a food supplement, it may harm the smaller dog breeds, but you MAY rub the decoction carefully into a pet's skin. Consider the other options from the article on pestcontrolhacks like essential oil shampoos as well as chamomile and wormwood decoctions. And, it may sound obvious, but keeping your home clean is a rule to keep.

Hi Jessica, I used frontline for keeping any fleas from off my Bruno but then turned to buying the Dr Martins as it works just as well but I never left it the 3mths months, he was washed monthly and a fresh one was applied but never had to deal with Ticks but both do for fleas and ticks