Tick and flea protection for Yorker with allergy
 

Hi everyone, my adopted angel has a thin coat and allergies. Can anyone tell me if there is a safe flea and tick powder or solution that works? Frontline and the formula the vet used was very toxic to my Yorkist last year...she had bad reaction. Thanks

Hmmm....good question. Do you have a Vet Derm you go to that you can ask? Otherwise, I do hope someone here has a suggestion for you.

Have you thought of something like nexguard?

My dog has a ton of allergies
I'm using Sentinel for heartworm, fleas, and parasites and using the Preventic Tick collar. This is a safe combo and very effective and so far so good on my little allergy dog. Both my dog's neurologist and internist use this combo on their own dogs so I am very comfortable with my choice. I'm not in love with the collar, but tick protection will have to come first before bling and beauty, at least for the warm months. This is also a very affordable option.

Preventives
 

I too use Sentinel Spectrum and it is oral and well tolerated by my dog.
This kills flea larvae and eggs among other things. If adult fleas are a problem you may need something to deal with that as well. (Capstar oral?) Don't know how this medication is for allergies.
Does the tick collar also kill fleas? If so, that sounds a great idea. I use topical Frontline Plus for fleas and ticks now and would like the collar if possible.
Have you found any disadvantage will the collar, and for how long is it effective? Thanks.

Fleas
 

107 Barney. Sorry to hijack the thread but what is your opinion of depending on the Sentinel alone to control fleas? My vet urged me to keep giving Frontline as well, to prevent tapeworm. So what to do??

Dottie,
The Preventic collar is ONLY for ticks. I spoke with my vet about the issue of adult fleas as the regular Sentinel *technically* leaves a gap. Here is what he said, I'm copy and pasting:

If you use Sentinel all year round you will have no flea problem. It is not the one or two adult fleas that hop on the dog outside that cause a flea problem. It is the thousands of fleas that infest your home when they lay eggs, which is the problem. I have used Sentinel on all dogs for years that spend hours in the woods every day and I have never seen a flea. Sentinel is a pesticide free way to prevent fleas since it prevents an enzymatic step in the female flea needed to make her egg case. No flea eggs means no fleas, and it has zero effect on mammals.

Here is what he said about the efficacy of the Preventic Collar:
Nothing is 100% for ticks but the Preventic Brand tick collar changed once a month kills 90% of ticks[/I]

I just started using it, and haven't had any issues. The disadvantage is that it is visible. But, I can't take the chance around here and my vets say this is the safest option for my dogs.

Tick collar
 

Now I have really hijacked the thread!! But I hope this info will be useful to others. :)
Thanks for your reply. I am sure that we are no worse off in SoCal for fleas and ticks than you are in your area, so the same rules should apply?
The place I take Austin to for boarding does not like the topicals as they get on all the other dogs when they are in playtime. I don't like it either as it makes all his coat greasy looking. She gives Capstar to her dogs I believe.
I think my vet's reasoning was that if an adult flea with tapeworm egg inside gets on a dog and the dog eats it, he gets tapeworm??!! But I don't think FL + would have time to kill the flea anyway before it was eaten?
So I might try the collar and give up the FL and see how it goes. I guess if he gets tapeworm the Sentinel will fix it.
Do you keep the collar on all the time or just when outside? Have you ever found a tick on your dog since using the collar?
What a pain all this preventive stuff is......and with allergies thrown in, it must really be hard!
Thanks again:)

I just bought the Seresto Flea and Tick collars for all three of mine. I'd always used Frontline in the past but after talking with 107 Barney about a wearable collar instead I started looking around to see what other options were out there. After reading pretty good reviews about the Seresto I put a call into my vet to ask his opinion. He said that he had also heard good things about it but didn't carry it. He was willing to order for me but I found them online with a rebate. What I liked about them was they are an 8 MONTH protection for fleas and ticks. They are very thin and can be worn with a collar and are not bulk. They also have a breakaway feature in case they were ever to get caught. One pull will lose it and a second pull will break it away. They were pretty pricey at $50 each (less a $12 instant rebate) but I figured if I put them on in April they would last until December. You can get them wet with weekly bathes and swimming but the directions say frequent swimming will reduce the length of time they are effective but a month or so. My vet asked that I report back with my opinion and results. We don't have a lot of trees but Bogey and DBug both have had a tick before and then there is the bunny issue so I am concerned with fleas. I tried the Nexguard but with 3 dogs it's way too expensive for my budget.

Seresto
 

Thank you for this info on Seresto. It is made by Bayer so should be trustworthy.
I read some reviews after seeing your post and it seems most users find it effective. Some say it takes some time to start working, but then it is great. Of course there are a few who report bad side effects, but that is often the case with med products. Look forward to your tests on your dogs:) is it possible to remove the collar after it is put on, as I would prefer to take off for bathing. They say you should not wash dogs more than once per month, which would not work here!
Thanks again and hope it works for you.
BTW it is 45$ on Amazon.

No the Seresto collar cannot be removed. It doesn't have a buckle and has a locking mechanism similar to a zip tie. If you wash more than once per month it just loses length of time. But I'm alright with that. Some of the reviews were from people who took their dogs into heavily wooded areas. We have Yorkies so I'm not really concerned with that

Thank you. I thought it might not be possible to remove the collar. I wash him at least twice a month, but as they say, it only reduces the effective period. It is an amazing idea with the slow release from the plastic and so much better than the pretty crude liquid spot method. Much of the liquid goes into the hair not the skin and makes the procedure very inefficient.
I really look forward to your test run, especially with a sample of three dogs:)
Good luck.

Seresto covers fleas. So you don't need it with Sentinel. But, you could change to heartgard.

The prevention collar has a buckle and can be taken on and off. It's thicker than the Seresto collar and is labeled to work for 3 months. I bought four collars for $50.

FL does not do anything if the dog eats a flea. Anyway, sentinel spectrum covers tapeworms. Maybe that's what your vet meant? Some people want to use a flea protection for adult fleas. I find my vet's reasoning about the egg case to be persuasive. One flea on my dog isn't a problem if it can't lay eggs, unless of course my dog ingests the flea and gets a tapeworm, which can happen with any flea med except Sentinel spectrum. One of mine has epilepsy, so we are very limited in what we can safely use.

Just not a fan of collars and I would not want that against me or my skin or my grandparents or anyone else to be touching it on accident. Callie likes to lay with her head and neck on any part of me that she can all the time (most of the time it is where I have bare skin) so I would be really worried with how it could effect me because I have such sensative skin. I honestly have been greatly impressed by nexguard. It is expensive but worth it to me. My moms yorkie was getting lots of ticks in his yard even with putting Advantix on and after switching to nexguard there were none. Neither my moms nor my dog have had a reaction at all and it's so easy to just give them a chew and it's done. My vet said they only had one persons dog have a reaction and they were giving the first dose to try free but it was a puppy who was very sleepy after he took it for the rest of the day.

107 Barney. Thanks for your answers to my queries and suggestions. I agree that worrying about adult fleas has little merit when taking Sentinel. The tick collar as you suggest would take care of ticks and I would not need the topical FL. I like the idea that the collar can be removed for bathing etc. I wonder if you have noticed any irritation under the collar after it has been in place for some time? They say the collar has to be fairly snug and it could rub on the neck?
Love to dream has a point about the collar being in contact with their humans, who may be allergic or sensitive to the chemical.
Sorry about the Qs but using anything new on my dog takes courage and inertia, LOL! But I really would love to stop the messy topical.
Thank you so much, this thread has been interesting and helpful.

I am extremely sensitive to just about everything and the collar does not bother me at all AND I haven't had a tick or flea yet..... LOL They have had it on for one week and so far they seem perfectly fine. As for the argument that Taylor made regarding the collar and the protectant being spread doesn't the topical do pretty much the same thing? Like I said before the Nexguard it out of my price range for a monthly cost and 3 dogs.

Ticks
 

Thanks for the update on your use of the collar, sounds good:)
Probably casual contact with the meds in the collar would not allow much to diffuse out, as it is a slow release mechanism. I agree the FL topical is also a problem until it has dried and if you touch the area and get it on your fingers, it is tough on the eyes!! Hard to stop petting the dog in the neck area. I find the coat gets very greasy locally too and I can't wait until I can wash the dog to get the coat nice again. I would love to get a FL alternative and the collar sounds like it. Hope it continues to work well.

Topicals made Callie not feel well and they weren't put on her neck she lays on me but I would wait the minim amount of days until they could be bathed and I would have to bathe her because the greasiness never went away. I always had to be on top of everyone not to touch the greasy spot. It was exhausting.

So far so good w/ the collars. I've had one on Daisy for a few days. If anyone would be sensitive, it would be her. She's perfectly fine.

I don't care about the contact w/ humans. I don't trust Nexguard and neither do my vets. I have no desire to overspend on this stuff, the collar is cheap and very effective. I spend $50/year after rebate for sentinel and the collars were 2 for $28 which arguably will last all season.

Tick collar
 

Thank you for the update on the collar, glad it is doing its job with no side effects on your dog. The cost for the meds is very reasonable. I think I will get the tick collar and try it out, and stop the messy FL.
Thank you for all your input to this topic. :)

Interesting, I give my 3 Nexguard. I hadn't considered collars. Do they work for ticks and fleas? Do they have an odor?

I would use the collar if it could only be used for short time periods... i.e. going for a walk in the woods, put the collar on, come home and take it off, but alas it can't. To be effective you have to leave it on all the time and that would just bother me. Jackson doesn't ever sleep with a collar on, always take it off for bed-time mostly for comfort.

I still haven't got a chance to try Nexgard because my prescription was apparently lost in the mail that I sent to 1800petmeds. Argh. So I'll probably end up doing an Advantix topical for this month as the ticks are starting to come out. I typically only use flea/tick meds for May, June, July and sometimes August anyway so I'm not terribly worried about price. Also don't do every 30 days - usually push it to 45 and it still works.

I had a problem with the collar on one of the dogs tonight. I put it on all of them, and within 30 minutes, one had a serious reaction and is hospitalized as we speak. I'm skipping these altogether now.

Omg....I am so sorry this happened.....I hope everything is alright, you must be so heartsick. I'm glad you posted this so others can be aware there might be a serious problem with this product. I hope your pup recovers soon and is back home with you.

For anyone else reading this I hope you take this as a serious caution about this product and learn from a member who is posting about her experience.
This is what to look for if you choose to use this product....

Amitraz
Poisonous to: Cats, Dogs

Level of toxicity: Generally moderate to severe

Common signs to watch for:

Lethargy
Walking drunk
Dilated pupils
Seizures
Coma
Drooling
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Bloating
Slowed heart rate
Collapse
Hypotension
Hypertension
Amitraz is an ectoparasiticide (kills fleas, ticks, etc.) used in veterinary products. This chemical is an alpha2-adrenergic agonist and monoamine oxidase inhibitor. When accidentally ingested or applied to pets inappropriately, it can result in severe clinical signs of the central nervous system (e.g., lethargy, walking drunk, dilated pupils, seizures, coma), gastrointestinal system (e.g., drooling, vomiting, diarrhea, bloating), and cardiac system (e.g., slowed heart rate, low or high blood pressure). Treatment includes veterinary attention for the antidote (e.g., atipamazole, yohimbine), blood pressure monitoring, IV fluids, and symptomatic supportive care. Immediate veterinary attention should be sought.

Poison type: Insecticides

Alternate names: insecticide, acaracide, immiticide, Mitaban, Mitac, Preventic, Taktic, Zema, Mitacur, Ovasyn, parasiticide, ProMeris


Again, I'm so sorry and I'm glad you took the time to post this possibly save others from this happening and I wish a speedy recovery for your pup.

Thank you. It was a horrific experience and we are lucky that he is alive. All four had collars on, and only one had an issue. I can't relive it right now but if he can come home tomorrow then I may feel up to the details.

Tick collar
 

OMG!!
So very sorry one of your dogs had such a bad reaction to the collar. You must have been shocked when that happened. Praying he will be ok very soon.
Thank goodness your other babies are ok.
The drug is a powerful antidepressant but I guess that it was supposed to only reach the dog's system in tiny safe quantities. But your dog may have been super sensitive to the chemical.
This is why I hate giving all these anti bug meds:( But we have to take the risks!
Hoping your baby will be well soon and you will feel less stressed, a horrible thing to happen.
Will you contact the company when you feel better?
Hugs, Dot.

I've been thinking of you all morning, I'm so sorry I had no idea it was so serious. I wish you all the best and I hope your pup is back home soon.

So sorry this happened, prayers for your pup and that he has a speedy recovery.

Oh my goodness, I am so sorry to read this. I hope your furbaby will be alright. How horrible. Please keep us updated on how your furbaby is doing.