Flea and Tick treatment that lasts 3-4 months!
Can it be true?
As the weather gets warmer, Flea and Tick Season is approaching and so now it’s time for all us pet owners to guard our pets against fleas and ticks. So what are our options and which products work the best? This year new prevention products have now hit the Australian shelves that claim to protect your dog from fleas for up to 3 months and ticks for up to 4 months! Flea and tick prevention are so important for our pets, however as a pet owner myself I know how hard it is to remember to protect your pets – especially if tick prevention needs to happen every 2 weeks.
So what are your options for flea and tick prevention this season? This post will compare 2 options out there - topical and oral treatments, and will discuss their pros and cons, and what other users have experienced. We will be talking about dogs as I’m sorry to say that so far there are no tick prevention products for cats!
The new products on the market are called Nexgard and Bravecto.
They are both an oral chewable tablet. While Nexgard will protect your pet for one month, Bravecto claims to protect against fleas for up to 3 months and paralysis ticks for up to 4 months. PROS – well isn’t it obvious? We only need to give this product to our dog 4 times a year! It is also FDA approved and its testing period produced great results, claiming to be one of the safest flea and tick prevention products for your dog. CONS – It is new to the market and so not much is known or reported about consumer use and its effectiveness on a wide scale market. The stories I have read have mixed reactions, with some users saying it worked great with no side effects and others claiming they still found fleas and ticks on their dogs or that their dog had a chronic reaction that affected the dogs liver. When digging deeper on these reactions, it seems that this is the general consensus for any oral prevention, including other flea prevention products widely known in the market such as Comfortis and Panoramis. And this is because users may not be educated on HOW oral preventions work. The product reaches the tissue level just under the skin of your dog. When a flea or tick bites your dog it ingests the product and dies. So what does this mean? It means that your dog must get BITTEN before the product will kill any parasites! So no wonder why owners still found the parasite on their dog! The active ingredient affects the nervous system in insects but has no effect on a canine’s nervous system. So I don’t know about you, but I’m not too happy with the idea of my dog getting bitten in order to be protected! And what about the other claims - that dogs have displayed chronic side effects? This product is INGESTED! While the products are FDA approved and claim to be safe for your dog, the bottom line still remains - your dog is eating a pesticide.
So what is another choice for flea and tick prevention? The good old topical application, such as Frontline Plus or Advantix. PROS – Your dog does not need to ingest this product and so in general it has fewer chances of side effects. These products have also been on the market for a lot longer and so it is more widely accepted as being safe to use and effective. But the biggest PRO of them all – topical treatments work by creating a barrier on your dog that repels fleas and ticks BEFORE they have the chance to bite your dog! They also kill ALL stages of the flea cycle, not just the adult fleas. CONS – because they have been on the market for some time now, parasites have started to build immunity against the product, which is making it less effective. Also, the fact that you have to remember to apply the product fortnightly for paralysis tick prevention (which also becomes costly).
So what will I be choosing for my dogs this flea and tick season? I think I will stick with what has worked for me in the past and that is a topical treatment (Frontline Plus to be precise). I might wait a bit longer before trying a product that is brand new to the market just to be sure. After all, why stop using something if it is still working? And in regards to being more convenient using a longer lasting product? Maybe I should just stop being so lazy! It only takes 2 minutes every 2 weeks (and a simple 2 weekly reminder that I set myself on my iPhone) to protect my dogs from a deadly parasite!
Different products will work best for different dogs and their lifestyle. The most important thing is that we as pet owners are doing something to minimise our dog’s exposure to these nasty creatures. Remember that it can take up to 3 months to completely eradicate your dog from a flea infestation and that you need to also kill the other life stages of the fleas within the dog’s environment. And for tick prevention, no product is 100% effective and so don’t forget to keep up with regular checks of your dog’s coat.
Have you tried any of the new products such as Nexgard or Bravecto? If so, please comment with your experience! The more we talk about these products the more facts we all have to make an informed decision!
Your monthly dog news,
By Davina Dewar
