# Fleas, ticks, heartworm protection...any ONE holistic treatment do all?



## Blue22 (Jan 22, 2012)

We recently purchased land and our dogs will be trekking through it. It has tons of deer so I need to add treatment for tics now that they will be exposed. They are on advantage multi but I'm going to have to put them on Advantix or Revolution for the tics if I can't find something holistic that works. Does anything work on ALL parasites including heartworm protection? I'd prefer going the natural route if I can. I have read that neem works well and have organic neem bark but not sure if it actually works and don't know if I trust their lives to using it alone.


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## kiya (May 3, 2010)

I have never found a product that I feel works for ticks. This year I am trying a new 8 month collar, Seresto. It is supposed to do fleas too. I use Hartguard at the moment, I did not find a natural product that I felt was good enough for heartworm.


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## NancyJ (Jun 15, 2003)

Try the neem and do a daily tick check and that will tell you. I am also giving garlic [with care]. I am in a lot of woods. I assume signficant acreage? For a yard you can use beneficial nematodes - can even for large amount of land but it could be expensive.

I live in heartworm central so don't mess around with that.


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## marbury (Apr 3, 2012)

Trifexis will take care of your fleas, heartworms, and intestinal parasites. Vectra is excellent for fleas and ticks (and flies!). My preferred combo is Trifexis and a Preventic collar. I haven't had issues at all, even out in hunting land or with the dogs in water. The Preventic collar lasts for us for about two and a half months before I start finding a tick or two behind their ears.


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## GatorBytes (Jul 16, 2012)

Here is a recent thread about natural

http://www.germanshepherds.com/forum/health-issues/251105-tick-repellent.html#post3339777

M&J's suggestion (Bucks) is combo of neem, diatamacious earth and yarrow...


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## Magwart (Jul 8, 2012)

Please do not mess with unproven Heartworm preventatives, if you live in an area where it is common! If you guess wrong, and you live in HW country, you may be looking at up to a a $1000 vet bill to treat them (or even more in some large urban areas where vet prices are higher)--or a dramatically shortened lifespan for the dog, if left untreated.

I see so many HW+ dogs where I live, and the treatment is so hard on them (30-60 days of crate rest), I don't want anyone's dog to have to go through it.


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## JeanKBBMMMAAN (May 11, 2005)

We are definitely seeing HW+ dogs in WNY. A few reasons - hotter weather, less people spending the money on preventatives, vets who do not work with rescues or the public that treat all HW+ dogs who then don't see HW+ dogs, don't test yearly, saying it's not common here, "rescues" bringing dogs up from the south who don't treat and those dogs increase potential contagion, people treating slow kill so the dog is contagious longer, etc. We had 3 of 7 dogs treated 2 summers ago who were from WNY. Due to the cost that Magwart mentioned we try to pull dogs that we know are HW- whenever possible - HW+ also requires a foster home that can/wants to do the treatment. We have a local Goldendoodle that was just treated.


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