Preventives

Preventic

The Preventic collar is generally recognized as the gold standard against which all other tick preventives are measured.  The active ingredient is Amitraz.  If you use the collar, you must read and follow the directions on how to fit it.  "The collar needs to be placed so you can get two fingers between the collar and the dog's neck – no more, no less. If the collar is placed too tightly, irritation can occur."  The Preventic collar takes 24 hours to become effective. 

The Preventic collar has no effect on fleas.

There are a few drawbacks to the collar.  Rain won't affect its usefulness but it must be removed before the dog goes in water.  It can be dangerous if a dog gets it in his mouth or ingests it;  it can also be dangerous to another dog if they roughhouse and the other dog gets it in his mouth.  The collar is in wide use and is generally safe if fit correctly but you are the best judge of whether or not to use it in your particular situation.

The Preventic collar should not be used on a sick dog.   

Frontline

Frontline is often recommended as one of the best tick preventives and comes in several forms:  TopSpot, TopSpot Plus and Frontline Spray.  The active ingredient is fipronil.  Fipronil targets the nervous system of ticks and fleas, paralyzing the tick as it slogs through the dog's fur so that it is unable to suck blood and pass infection some time before it actually dies.

Frontline spreads out over the dog and settles in the skin's sebaceous (oil) glands, continually coating each individual hair as it emerges from the gland at its base.  It takes about 48 hours to completely cover so your dog shouldn't be sent out into an area where ticks are waiting directly after you apply it for the first time. Frontline does not go any further into a dog.

Because Frontline spreads through the oils on a dog's skin, you should bathe him, if you're going to, at least two days before you apply it.  If your dog has a negative reaction to Frontline, call the vet and bathe him (the dog, not the vet).  Merial recommends a shampoo containing Benzoyl Peroxide.

Frontline Plus has an insect growth regulator added that targets juvenile fleas and prevents them from becoming adults.  IGRs have absolutely no effect on ticks. 

You should not try to stretch the time between applications!  Ticks which survive the continually shrinking amount of Frontline on the dog left after the recommended 30 day reapplication time may become immune to it and one thing we do not need is ticks that are immune to the few weapons we have to use against them.

K9Advantix

K9Advantix, made by Bayer, is a relative newcomer.  Like Frontline TopSpot, it is a spot-on and spreads out over the dog's skin.  It contains two main ingredients: permethrin, which repels and kills ticks and mosquitoes, and imidocloprid, which targets fleas.  It seems to work well.

I wouldn't take Bayer's claim that K9Advantix protects against West Nile Virus too seriously.  Since dogs don't suffer or die from West Nile Virus, so what?  Your dog may appreciate not being so attractive to mosquitoes, though, and if it will repel other insects such as the caddis flies which carry N. risticii, that would be a huge incentive to use it. 

The caution against stretching the time between applications applies here, too.

All three of these preventives are preferable to anything that the dog must take orally, in my opinion.  It makes no sense to me to use an all purpose product that does several other things and...oh, yes, targets ticks.  Nor does it make sense to use a preventive that will only work after the tick bites the dog.  Besides which, something designed to kill ticks is not going in my dog's blood, thank you.

Remember, although the Preventic collar comes close, no tick preventive is going to be 100% effective.

____________________________________________________________ 

Using a Spot-On

Directions for spot-on tick preventives may tell you to put the entire contents of the small vial between the dog's shoulder blades.  A number of people, of whom I'm one, prefer to do it differently.  We dot the liquid in a series of spots down the dog's back, pushing the fur aside to make sure we get it right on the skin, going from the area between the shoulder blades to just above the tail.  It's less messy and it may shorten the time it takes for the preventive to cover your dog completely.

If you suspect that your dog may be one of the few that have a reaction to a spot-on, you can sacrifice a vial and put 'one' drop on his skin.  Within 24 hours, 48 at the most, you should have your answer.  If you see a small area like a burn, call the vet and ask what to use for relief.  This kind of reaction is rare.  I personally know of only three dogs that have experienced it and I have been on the internet dog lists for years.

____________________________________________________________

Natural Tick Preventives

For various reasons, some people elect not to use any commercial tick preventive on their dogs.  They buy so-called natural products or make their own from essential oils.  These products or recipes for them can be found all over the web and I don't include any here for various reasons of my own.  Here they are.

  • I don't believe they work well enough to keep my dog as safe as I can reasonably expect.  No tick preventive is going to be an absolute guarantee against tick disease but some are definitely better than others and all of those are commercial products; natural preventives just don't qualify as far as I'm concerned.
  • Essential oils can be dangerous.  A good number are highly dangerous to cats, to whom they can be fatal, through contact or simply by being inhaled.
  • Some natural preventives include rosemary, an herb which is suspected of causing seizures in epileptic dogs.
  • Many smell to high heaven.  While they may not be seriously offensive to us, a dog's nose has more than two hundred million scent receptors compared to the measly five million in each of ours and to him it's probably hell to be coated in citronella or something else with a strong, pungent smell.  Think of yourself stuck on a hot, crowded bus next to a woman drenched in perfume and multiply that by a hundred.  You might get an inch or two closer to what your dog goes through when you use those strong scents on him.  Think what they'd do to a tracking dog.
  • Natural oils are chemicals, they are simply not man-made chemicals.  And not being man-made, they have not gone through the rigorous testing that every commercial tick preventive undergoes, both for efficacy and safety.

  • At any rate, my advice would be to use a proven preventive like the Preventic Collar, Frontline TopSpot or K9Advantix on the dog and reserve the natural repellents for the house and yard.

    ____________________________________________________________ 

    Efficacy of the Amitraz-impregnated Preventic Collar 

    Results—By day 70, all control dogs (4) had developed serum ELISA responses ranging from 328 to 510 kinetics-ELISA units (equivalent to end-point titers of approx 43,500 to 60,000), whereas treated dogs remained seronegative throughout the study. Western blot assays performed on all serum samples confirmed that antibodies detected in control dogs reflected responses to specific antigens of B burgdorferi, whereas treated dogs had no such antibodies. Additional serologic analyses confirmed that antibody responses observed in control dogs were not attributable to antigenically similar organisms.

    Conclusions and Clinical Relevance—Amitraz-impregnated collars prevented transmission of B burgdorferi in 4 of 4 treated dogs and may be a useful management tool for prevention of borreliosis in dogs. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2001;219:185–189)

     

    TBD-related references>>>                                                       index

        American Dog Tick, metric, from Wikipedia. 

    These ticks live in the house.  If you have an infestation, your only option may be to move out for a few days and have a professional exterminator come in to get rid of them.  Be sure to get a guarantee!