# Preventative medications for North East/Canada



## DoubleOPinter (Sep 1, 2014)

Hello everyone, I have a question for everyone. As you can probably guess, I'm in the North East region of North America, I'm actually just an hour North of NY state in Ottawa, Canada. It's that time of year again where we have to start thinking about mosquitoes, ticks etc. I've been giving my girl Revolution for her 3 years now and I've seen no issues with it. We get a lot of mosquitoes, deer flies etc up here but also a lot of ticks. My dog is a magnet for ticks! I pull probably a dozen a year off her until it gets too cold and the little pieces of crap hide again. 
Anyway, I will continue with the Revolution, but my vet is now selling Simparica. I read a bit about it and I'm not so sure, it's too new I think.
So question for everyone, what do you guys give your dogs? My girl gets Lyme vaccines every year but that's not nearly as effective as you'd want it to be. Do you guys give your dogs anything for all the different types of worms? I know we get two types of ticks here, we get little black ticks, they for sure carry Lyme, and these big grey coloured things.
I really hate giving my dog these chemicals but I'd rather do that than have her die on me from something preventable. I was thinking maybe we could all share some experiences with different meds specific to north east?


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## DoubleOPinter (Sep 1, 2014)

I'll add to my own post and say that I've seen Bravecto mentioned several times as a tick treatment


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## Sophiesmom (Apr 10, 2017)

I'm just west of Toronto and train my dogs in the Niagara area as well as cottage in Muskoka all spring, summer and fall. I use revolution and nexguard to protect from heart worm, fleas and ticks. My vet won't give the Lyme vaccine due to his opinion of the ineffectiveness of it but I'm debating getting it elsewhere. I've heard conflicting statements about the nexguard killing the tick before it can transmit viruses but I would ask your vet what he/she thinks.


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## car2ner (Apr 9, 2014)

Lyme and Lepto are both iffy vacs but I give them to my dogs in the spring because of where we live. I use the Frontline plus type drops because they don't get too oily in the fur. My GSDs don't seem to get as itchy as my previous mix breed did. I do find dead ticks on them toward the end of the month, but lately I've been finding more on myself than on them. I HATE ticks!!!
I wish I could give them a month or two off from pesticides but this last winter was too mild. I wonder if the herbal mixes really work. I'd like to see an actual double blind study show how effective they are. And just because something is natural doesn't mean that it is safe. 

Reminds me of the Ogden Nash poem. "God in His wisdom made the fly...and then forgot to tell us why".


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## DoubleOPinter (Sep 1, 2014)

car2ner said:


> Lyme and Lepto are both iffy vacs but I give them to my dogs in the spring because of where we live. I use the Frontline plus type drops because they don't get too oily in the fur. My GSDs don't seem to get as itchy as my previous mix breed did. I do find dead ticks on them toward the end of the month, but lately I've been finding more on myself than on them. I HATE ticks!!!
> I wish I could give them a month or two off from pesticides but this last winter was too mild. I wonder if the herbal mixes really work. I'd like to see an actual double blind study show how effective they are. And just because something is natural doesn't mean that it is safe.
> 
> Reminds me of the Ogden Nash poem. "God in His wisdom made the fly...and then forgot to tell us why".


Be very careful, I hope you guys can take the ticks in to get tested. I had one attached to me in the fall, not sure how long but hoping less than a day or so, and the city tested it positive for Lyme. I'm the same, I hate the idea of giving her more pesticides but it's getting scary now, I pull so many off her each year. She loves the forest and I'm lucky enough to live close to a bunch so I'm not going to stop taking her there. I kind of want a **** tick treatment for myself 



Sophiesmom said:


> I'm just west of Toronto and train my dogs in the Niagara area as well as cottage in Muskoka all spring, summer and fall. I use revolution and nexguard to protect from heart worm, fleas and ticks. My vet won't give the Lyme vaccine due to his opinion of the ineffectiveness of it but I'm debating getting it elsewhere. I've heard conflicting statements about the nexguard killing the tick before it can transmit viruses but I would ask your vet what he/she thinks.


Ya so we're on revolution as well, my vet just told me they have this Simparica stuff. Reading on it, I mean it sounds just like Nexguard, but it's supposed to kill the ticks upon biting. I'm kind of interested in this cause she gets them all the time and it would be great if she didn't drag live ones back into the house. These chemicals just sound awful though. Have you ever heard of or seen anyone using Heartgard down in your area? I'm thinking of maybe dumping revolution and going for the Heartgard along with something else for the ticks and fleas. Heartgard is year round for heart worm and other worm nasties

And as far as the vaccines, I know the iffyness surrounding them but I'll take all the advantage I can get honestly. Ticks are really really bad here the last couple years, I think the city needs to start looking at what they can do to reduce. It was 22C here yesterday and raining now, I assume that ticks will be, if not already are, out very shortly... Since getting bit myself my perspective has focused a little more


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## Jenny720 (Nov 21, 2014)

We do the lymes vaccine even though I'm not a fan of vaccines and advantix. Where we live ticks are a big problem. My sister is a nurse and always tells me how many people have lymes disease in our area.


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## DoubleOPinter (Sep 1, 2014)

I'm leaning to asking for Nexgaurd if they have it. At least its been on the market the longest, this Simparica stuff has only been around for a year and I dunno, doesn't sound terribly great


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## cloudpump (Oct 20, 2015)

I'm looking into Lyme vaccination. Apparently it's supposed to be a bad year with how mild winter was. I add diatomaceous earth to food in the summer. Also I do garlic for fleas and ticks.


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## DoubleOPinter (Sep 1, 2014)

cloudpump said:


> I'm looking into Lyme vaccination. Apparently it's supposed to be a bad year with how mild winter was. I add diatomaceous earth to food in the summer. Also I do garlic for fleas and ticks.


Vet told me they've already had three cases of positive lyme this year... Watch out for yourselves


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## cloudpump (Oct 20, 2015)

I'm on the other side of lake Ontario. So similar issues.


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## DoubleOPinter (Sep 1, 2014)

cloudpump said:


> I'm looking into Lyme vaccination. Apparently it's supposed to be a bad year with how mild winter was. I add diatomaceous earth to food in the summer. Also I do garlic for fleas and ticks.


What do you do with garlic?


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## cloudpump (Oct 20, 2015)

Feed it to my dog. Here:
https://www.springtimeinc.com/FB-2014-04-Bug-Off-Garlic

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk


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## Sophiesmom (Apr 10, 2017)

I used to use heart guard but only May through October. I just switched to revolution this year and I started it in April due to our mild winter. I know a few people who pulled ticks off their dogs in March! I hate the chemicals as well and I use a sticky roller on my dogs after being outside but I'm still paranoid about ticks. I wish there was an alternative.


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## astrovan2487 (May 29, 2014)

I reluctantly got my dog vaccinated for Lymes last year and she got sick and wasn't herself for a few days. Nothing major, just didnt feel good. Ive heard very mixed things about that vaccine and not sure that I'll get it again for her. I myself have had Lymes and my rescue GSD had it. Usually if caught early it is not that bad, if left untreated for a long time, a year or more, can lead to serious long term issues. 

Fortunately where I live now ticks are not that bad, I pull 6-12 off my dog a year and we are constantly outside in areas where ticks should be. When I lived in Northern VA it was not unusual to pull a dozen ticks off my GSD every walk we went on. I tried everything back then that was available at the time, Frontline, Advantix, generic Permethrin, nothing worked. Right now I use Sentinel which protects against flea eggs, heart worm, hook worm, whip worm, and round worms. For ticks I buy the cheapest generic topical permethrin available as this is what a lot of the name brands have in them anyways. As for other vaccines she gets Lepto, Distemper, and Rabies. Get them all done at separate times so it's not a huge shock to her immune system. Also the rabies vaccine I use does not have lead in it as that type has been known to cause more issues than the lead free.


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## Sophiesmom (Apr 10, 2017)

We are doing nexgard and revolution for flea, tick and heart worm. We also do lepro on top of the regular rabies and other vaccines. My vet didn't recommend the Lyme vaccine as he said it hasn't shown great promise and he's hesitant to take the risks associated with it.


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## Suzy25 (Mar 3, 2016)

I use heartguard and bravecto, i work at my vet and all the dogs there get those, I haven't seen anything there that would turn me off using either of them


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