[Ellie May]

For intestinal parasites, I wouldn't treat for those (although most heartworm meds do anyway) unless a fecal samples comes back positive. You should have the vet check 1-2 times a year or anytime you are concerned about it.

I don't use flea products because Ellie rarely gets them and it just isn't healthy. For as often as she gets fleas, Dawn dish soap will probably work just fine for her. If I had to use something that wasn't natural to control them, I'd probably go with Frontline or Advantage (not Advantix). Advantix does help control mosquitos and ticks but they add permethrin to do this and it can make the dog feel like something is crawling on them. Frontline Vectra something or other I think it is also helps with ticks.

I do use and I highly recommend using something for heartworms. I have not read anything about preventing this naturally because I just would not trust that method. There are lots of threads about heartworm that you can search for to get everyone's opinion. I personally would only use one of these:

Interceptor (Milbemycin Oxime)
Sentinel (Milbemycin Oxime and Program)
Heartgard (Ivermectin)
Heartgard Plus (Ivermectin and Pyrantel)

Advantage Multi is very new and I haven't seen much on it so far. I think I'd avoid it. ProHeart 6 is an injection that was pulled and is now back on the market. This, in my opinion, is extremely dangerous and I wouldn't even consider giving it. Revolution has its good points but if you search Google, you will come across a site showing annual death rate from these drugs. It says Revolution is responsible for 36 annually while Interceptor is for 9 and Heartgard for 6, so is appears to be quite a bit more dangerous. There is also some question about whether it really is good heartworm protection, so I would really hesitate to go this way also.