Topics & Tips

Ticks are blood sucking parasites that bite and hold onto the surface of skin to take a blood meal. They like areas of warmth and darkness, so the under the nice fur coat of your pet is a favourite place to be. Aside from being obviously unpleasant to find on your pet, the concern with ticks is the ability they have to transmit diseases such as Lyme disease.

Ticks can be difficult to prevent, and they require that owners take several steps in order to avoid the transmission of diseases. Avoiding areas that have been known to be a reservoir for ticks, such as local areas with long grasses can be one way, but for an active dog at the off-leash park, this may not be possible. It is important to check over your dog once or twice daily if you visit these areas, as it takes a number of hours for a tick to transmit disease after it has bitten. Another important component of the prevention program is medications applied to the skin, or collars, which can greatly decrease the chance that a tick will bite in the first place.

Some of us can remember a time when finding fleas on our pet was a fearful and stressful event. Having to bath our pets in medications repeatedly, placing insecticide bombs in our houses and even throwing out old bedding were just some of the ways we fought these pests, and sometimes without success.

This is one of the areas that current prevention protocols have drastically changed the quality of life for our pets. With the same application of liquid to the back of the neck once monthly that prevents heartworm disease, you are also preventing infestations of fleas. Some of these medications are even killing other stages of the flea lifecycle right in your home. These medications have been so successful that it can be hard to find someone that has had to deal with fleas with the approaches listed above.

Heartworm is a parasitic worm that lives inside the blood vessels of infected animals and can cause heart failure over time. When established inside the blood vessels, a reproducing worm releases large numbers of very small worms (microfilariae) that circulate around the bloodstream. Mosquitos pick up the microfilariae when they take a blood meal and can deposit them in the bloodstream of another dog when they take their next blood meal.

This cycle can be interrupted with the simple application of a medication once monthly to the skin at the back of the neck. It is important to have a blood test to check to see if heartworm parasites are already there, and this can be performed in your own home. Prevention is usually applied just once monthly from June 1 to November 1, or during winter months if travelling to warmer climates.