# Flea and Tick Prevention in Winter? Necessary?



## Frisco19 (Aug 12, 2019)

The title says it all. Any reason to use something in the winter months? I don’t think we have winter fleas and ticks in the Northeast. They die off I believe when the temps go down.


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## tc68 (May 31, 2006)

yes


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## GSDmix (Oct 9, 2019)

I live in the SE so of course, we use it year round. But we also use sentinel which does it all: flea, HW, and ticks.


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## Frisco19 (Aug 12, 2019)

GSDmix said:


> I live in the SE so of course, we use it year round. But we also use sentinel which does it all: flea, HW, and ticks.




Thanks, I’m using Nextguard. I get why you need it year round. Wondering why you would need it sub 32 degrees. 

No problem with the money, just thinking why put a chemical in him any more than I need to.


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## tim_s_adams (Aug 9, 2017)

I usually stop around October and start up again in March or April. Just depends on where you live.


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## Frisco19 (Aug 12, 2019)

tim_s_adams said:


> I usually stop around October and start up again in March or April. Just depends on where you live.




Thanks. That’s what I thought. I’m in the Boston area. I gave him a nextguard a few days ago, so I’m good until the first week in December.


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## Sunflowers (Feb 17, 2012)

I think it largely depends on how much time your dog spends outside. 

Also, I leave you with this:

https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2008/05/billion-dollar-heartworm-scam.html?m=1


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## Jeanne Grunert (Oct 24, 2019)

We continue with flea and ticks meds during the winter. I live in Virginia, in the piedmont area. The outdoor cats and dog continue to get their meds. We had one cat bring fleas into the house and that's the one and only time I want to deal with them. Ugh. I think I hate fleas worse than ticks!


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## Saco (Oct 23, 2018)

I usually stop in mid-November and begin again once the ground thaws. 

Deer ticks have been bad this fall, though, so I'll monitor closely. 

I live a climate zone north of you, but the ticks seem to thrive here. 

So the short answer is no- but it is changing fast, so probably soon we will need to give meds year round, and ticks pop out with a thaw in mid-winter, too, from their warm nests with the deer mice.


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## Frisco19 (Aug 12, 2019)

Sunflowers said:


> I think it largely depends on how much time your dog spends outside.
> 
> Also, I leave you with this:
> 
> https://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2008/05/billion-dollar-heartworm-scam.html?m=1


Thanks, yeah, I never gave either of my last two dogs heart worm meds. It's debatable whether it's actually an issue in my area.


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## MineAreWorkingline (May 2, 2015)

Frisco19 said:


> Thanks, yeah, I never gave either of my last two dogs heart worm meds. It's debatable whether it's actually an issue in my area.


I am in the northeast. I do not keep my dogs on flea or tick meds. When necessary, I use Bravecto. I do not keep my dogs on heart meds but I do periodically have them tested. The vets here say that if you had to pick and choose, opt for tick meds. The vet I go to said they had five cases of heartworm in dogs last year and all of them had traveled throughout the southern states with their owner.


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## Frisco19 (Aug 12, 2019)

MineAreWorkingline said:


> I am in the northeast. I do not keep my dogs on flea or tick meds. When necessary, I use Bravecto. I do not keep my dogs on heart meds but I do periodically have them tested. The vets here say that if you had to pick and choose, opt for tick meds. The vet I go to said they had five cases of heartworm in dogs last year and all of them had traveled throughout the southern states with their owner.


Yeah, my vet was brutally honest with me too on heart worm. He said that a few years ago he would say don't bother as it was extinct in the area and a waste of money, but he did say there have been a few cases in Massachusetts recently, so he put it on me to decide.

When you do not keep them on flea and tick but use Bravecto when necessary, I assume you mean you take them off in the winter?


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

If you're in dangerous tick regions, you can't count on Winter to get rid of them. This site explains their seasonality, and the potential tick activity during the Winter (even in the Northeast):

https://tickencounter.org/faq/seasonal_information



Even if you live in an area where there's not a lot of HW, all you need is one rescue transport of dogs from the South when mosquitoes are around to make HW an issue locally, even if it's not normally. Sadly, some transports aren't careful or educated about the importance of not spreading disease. When I lived in Los Angeles many years ago, HW was unheard of there -- most people didn't use HW prevention, few vets saw cases of it, and it just wasn't a big thing YET. Nevertheless, I kept my dogs on a generic version of Heartgard that cost around $5/month just in case -- it's super-low dose and well tolerated. Then Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and we had load after load of heartworm-positive pet survivors arrive. Several dogs in my own neighborhood got heartworms the following year. Mine didn't. That $5/month pill protected mine.



I deal with HW all the time in rescue in the Deep South now -- it's awful. It's not something to roll the dice with. The problem with stopping HW during the cold months is that every product except for one works retroactively, letting baby worms get deposited, dosing the dog with the drug that then mops up not just the ones deposited in the last 30 days, but any that slipped through and weren't killed by the dose the month or two before that--because they're not 100% on any given month, but they are 100% _over time when given consistently_. So if you stop for winter before mopping the ones missed last month, any that survive will be too big to kill with prevention products in Spring when you re-start meds...even though your dogs will still test "negative," it will be a false "negative" that's just too soon to register as "positive"(worms have to be 6-7 months old to produce the antigen for the test to pick up). However, the following year when you test, you'll have a HW+ dog needing HW treatment. 



Please don't use the Internet charts to self-medicate Ivermectin! I had a vet look at one of those DIY ivermectin charts and found out the site was recommending a dose that is literally thousands of times higher than the amount in Heartgard. Yes, THOUSANDS! Ivermectin overdoses can blind or neurologically damage dogs pretty easily. It _can_ be safely diluted down by a vet for you who can do the calculation to keep your dog safe -- it's literally measured in DROPS not CCs -- but don't trust randos online to do that calculation or dilution for you. Farm vets do this pretty regularly for clients who have multiple species of animals though.


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## MineAreWorkingline (May 2, 2015)

Frisco19 said:


> Yeah, my vet was brutally honest with me too on heart worm. He said that a few years ago he would say don't bother as it was extinct in the area and a waste of money, but he did say there have been a few cases in Massachusetts recently, so he put it on me to decide.
> 
> When you do not keep them on flea and tick but use Bravecto when necessary, I assume you mean you take them off in the winter?


Actually no. I had a flea problem a while back and tried everything to resolve the issue. The vets weren't very helpful just telling me to use meds more frequently. A friend who is a vet tech suggested Bravecto. It took one treatment on all of them to resolve the issue and I have not had fleas again. I regularly inspect the dogs for signs of fleas and so far so good. If I were to get fleas again, I would retreat with Bravecto. In this country, Bravecto is good for three months. In foreign countries, they use it effectively every six months.


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## Frisco19 (Aug 12, 2019)

MineAreWorkingline said:


> Actually no. I had a flea problem a while back and tried everything to resolve the issue. The vets weren't very helpful just telling me to use meds more frequently. A friend who is a vet tech suggested Bravecto. It took one treatment on all of them to resolve the issue and I have not had fleas again. I regularly inspect the dogs for signs of fleas and so far so good. If I were to get fleas again, I would retreat with Bravecto. In this country, Bravecto is good for three months. In foreign countries, they use it effectively every six months.


Thanks. Hmmm, I like the idea of three months. It pretty cheap too, cheaper than Nextguard.


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## Frisco19 (Aug 12, 2019)

Magwart said:


> If you're in dangerous tick regions, you can't count on Winter to get rid of them. This site explains their seasonality, and the potential tick activity during the Winter (even in the Northeast):
> 
> https://tickencounter.org/faq/seasonal_information
> 
> ...


Understood on both counts. I'm not stopping HeartGuard. I'll probably keep the F&T going as well.


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## wolfy dog (Aug 1, 2012)

I am in the PNW and I only use it from about May through Sept.


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## Saco (Oct 23, 2018)

I switched to Simparica from Bravecto because my vet said it was only working for about 10 weeks- and that's what I was seeing with engorged ticks before the 3 months were up. I don't think it is good for 6 months. Simparica on the other hand does seem to last about 35 days, so that is how I dose it. I have to give my dogs tick meds or me and them will get Lyme, or another tick illness, almost guaranteed.

For Heartworm, I use the sheep drench (do an Amazon search) and a 1 cc syringe to dose my dogs- most get about 0.3 cc- that is O point 3 cc (decimal place matters a lot). I have done a lot of research, and asked my vet, and this is correct dosage.


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## WIBackpacker (Jan 9, 2014)

I used to stop over the winter (upper Midwest) but the deer ticks are present year round. They seem to be getting worse.

I removed one from myself last year in January, and my neighbor freaked out and posted all over Facebook & Nextdoor when she found one on her daughter in February. There's 3 inches of snow on the ground right now, and I found a tick on my puppy last night. As soon as his weight stabilizes enough that he can be dosed correctly, he's going on Nexguard like the adult dogs.... the topicals haven't worked for me in years, and clearly they're not working on my puppy, even though temps are solidly below freezing and he's basically getting slathered in Wondercide in addition to a vet topical. Ugh. 

Everyone's risk level and exposure is different, but I've learned I can't rely on winter up here.


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## Koda'sMom (Feb 13, 2013)

We do flea and tick as well as heartworm year round. I'm just not willing to take any chances because we tend to have mozzies and fleas and ticks year round here in the south


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## Jax08 (Feb 13, 2009)

I used to stop here in PA but the winters aren't killing the ticks off. I use a Seresto collar year round.


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## GSDchoice (Jul 26, 2016)

It's a good question which I have wondered myself! 

I would tend to trust local vets in the area. 
Our vet said to keep him on HW/Tick/Flea year-round...
we live in NC and she said that practically every dog around here gets heartworm if not on the preventative.
Our winters are not very cold and we will have some very cold snaps but honestly, I make it through most of the winter here in a fleece jacket.
So...not cold enough to get rid of the pesky ticks/fleas...:-/


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## Bramble (Oct 23, 2011)

I am a groomer and live in Western NY. I have regularly found ticks on dogs in Jan and Feb. I had a 6 month old puppy in last week that had 14 ticks on it. Ticks bother me more than fleas because of what they can carry. I don't stop preventatives in the winter. I live in a rural area and if we get a thaw in Jan or Feb then fleas and ticks are a possibility. You can also bring fleas home from other places, like a friend's house if their animals have fleas. I have had a few clients go visit someone or have someone come to visit and their dog ends up with fleas.


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## Frisco19 (Aug 12, 2019)

Bramble said:


> I am a groomer and live in Western NY. I have regularly found ticks on dogs in Jan and Feb. I had a 6 month old puppy in last week that had 14 ticks on it. Ticks bother me more than fleas because of what they can carry. I don't stop preventatives in the winter. I live in a rural area and if we get a thaw in Jan or Feb then fleas and ticks are a possibility. You can also bring fleas home from other places, like a friend's house if their animals have fleas. I have had a few clients go visit someone or have someone come to visit and their dog ends up with fleas.




Thanks. NY is close enough for me. I’ll continue year round. We go for lots of hikes. My backyard is pretty suburban but it’s wood lined. We have coyotes and the usual rodents like rabbits. Not that these have anything to don with fleas and ticks, but just saying it’s rural enough. Our hikes are 3-4 times a week in deep woods. I’ll continue them through the winter.


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