Living in CT, just 50 (ish) miles from where Lyme disease was discovered, you can imagine tick prevention is extremely important to me.
In my mind, ticks and fleas go hand in hand. They are both bloodsucking, disease carrying parasites, and I have no desire to have them on my pets, or in my house.
I stopped using a topical flea and tick preventative on my dogs many years ago. We did use it initially, but Sampson always cringed when we applied it, and then I started thinking about the fact, I was applying a poison to my dog, that was absorbed into his blood that was strong enough to kill a tick!
Have you ever tried to kill a tick? Yeah, it’s not like you can step on them and squish them.
The dogs and I love to hike in the woods, which, of course, are full of ticks. Additionally, due to all the wildlife in our area, we can pick up ticks just walking around the neighborhood.
Fleas
I’ve heard healthy dogs don’t attract fleas, and while most healthy dogs are unattractive to fleas, any dog can pick up a flea and bring it into your home. Once inside your home, fleas can lay eggs in carpets, upholstery, cracks in the floor, etc. They can lie dormant for months, and then a nice sunny day, those bitches pop up like you were playing Whack-A-Mole. Unlike Whack-A-Mole, you can’t just pop a flea on the head and think it’s gone. It can literally take you months…months!
Fleas carry diseases. I’m not going to go into them here, but if you are interested, you can read some of the diseases HERE.
Of course, we recently had a bout with Tapeworm, another really gross by product of the infamous flea. In that instance, I could not find evidence of fleas, either on the dogs or in the house, BUT, that doesn’t mean Sampson didn’t ingest a flea, or flea egg whether it was at the vet’s or outside.
Must. You. Go. There?
Ticks
As I mentioned, we live less than an hour away from where Lyme disease was first discovered. I want to vomit just thinking about these fat bastards, what they do and what they carry. Besides Lyme, they carry a number of serious diseases, and while most are treatable, it’s just one more thing I don’t want to worry about.
I’m not saying ticks are BETTER than fleas, but usually when I find a tick, it’s ONE tick, and it’s easily removed. We have a small container filled with rubbing alcohol where nasty ticks go to die. It sits on the counter with our tick key, and is always ready when needed. I know some people who put the tick in tape, or a plastic bag with the date on it, in case they need to have the tick checked.
I like to prevent fleas and ticks, as opposed to treating for them, so this is how we do it.
Treating the yard.
Almost immediately upon moving to our home almost 11-years ago, I found a tick, attached to my stomach. We had just moved in, and a lot of items hadn’t been unpacked, so removal was primitive. (I think I held the flashlight and Hubby used a steak knife.) 🙂
I called for a professional service soon after. We used a traditional flea/tick service until about three years ago, that’s when I found Think Green, a professional service that uses a combination of essential oils to spray the yard. They come out four times per year at $95 a treatment. The bonus to this service is…my yard smells like a Tic Tac right after being sprayed. 🙂
So that’s what a Tic Tac smells like. I’m sure I’d love it, if I knew what it was.
Treating the dogs.
In addition to treating our yard, I use a non-toxic flea and tick spray on the dogs. I do this twice per day. Back in the spring, I was only spraying once per day, and there were occasions (maybe once per week,) when I’d find a tick on one of the dogs. Then I switched to twice per day, and that seems to have done the trick.
Ticks tend to thrive in the cooler weather of spring and fall, so we are heading into ‘tick season’ right now. Spraying the dogs twice per day adds more time to my schedule, but if it keeps them from getting ticks, and tick diseases, I’m okay with that.
When I look for a natural/non-toxic tick spray, I look for ingredients I can read and pronounce, (nothing with sodium lauryl sulfate in them.) It’s important to pay attention to the ingredients in natural products, as natural and non-toxic are not the same thing. Also, some sprays use rubbing alcohol as a base, and while I’m okay spraying that on my dogs with thick Labrador coats, some dogs (especially those with thin coats) could have some issues with skin drying out, which could cause itching.
I typically rotate my flea and tick sprays, and one of my go-to’s is Pet Natural’s of Vermont.
I rotate my spray for two reasons. One, I don’t want Sampson or Delilah to develop and intolerance or have a reaction because I’ve used the same product too much. Two, I don’t want those fleas or ticks to get used to the smell and become immune to it. 🙂
The bonus for using a non-toxic spray, is I can use it on myself as well.
How do you keep your pets from getting fleas or ticks?
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This is part 4, in a series designed to help you make simple changes, that will help reduce toxin exposures for both you and your pets. If you’ve missed the previous installments, or are just tuning in, installment one can be found HERE, installment two can be found HERE, and installment three can be found HERE.
While researching whether it’s true a healthy dog does not get fleas, I came across this…Top 10 Flea Myths from Only Natural Pet.
Because of our size, furs, and lifestyle, we have to use the tough stuff for fleas and ticks. We are in the woods and tall grass a lot. Here in MN ticks are really bad, and everywhere. We can’t risk getting ticks, or fleas. Everyone has to make their own choices. For us the chews are the best protection. We don’t use topical as it was not working well enough. That is great that your natural system works for you guys so well. For us the chemical solution in chews is worth it because the dangers of ticks is so high. Bailie almost died from a tick disease 2 years ago and that can’t happen again.
I get that. You are so right, it is an individual choice and everyone must do what is right for them.
Merlin has a monthly tablet for his fleas which also treats for different rypes of worms too. We don’t have ticks where we live.
Natural and non-toxic sounds great, those buggers are just evil.
Like Emma and her sisters, my girls need the chewables. Living in the South, fleas are out year-round. And the natural/non-toxic stuff doesn’t work for us. (We tried it to no avail. Luckily, we were able to get rid of the evil things fairly quickly.) I haven’t found any ticks on the girls in about 3 years – thank goodness – and it was a tiny one on Shadow’s forehead that I was able to remove with a pair of tweezers.
Now, both you and Emma mentioned a chew, I’ve never heard of this. What is it exactly?
I’ve read and heard from different sources that making a lavender oil spray can repel mosquitoes, fleas and ticks, but haven’t actually found anyone who uses it. Have you looked into that out all? The person who told us owns a lavender farm, so I wasn’t sure.
I’ve heard of a number of different sprays using natural oils, but never lavender. I know lavender is great to stop the itch of a bug bite, but I’ve never seen it in any of the sprays I use. I will have to check it out. Thanks for the tip!
I thought I knew a lot on this subject, but you taught me some new things! I didn’t know about the alcohol, which is something I should look for. Luke’s fur is so thin in places I can see where drying might be an issue.
Of course, I should have prefaced this with the fact that I use only natural products too, but you probably knew that. 🙂
That was a good suggestion and reasoning for switching products sometimes. I like the Pet Naturals of VT, but wasn’t sure if it was working well for the ticks. Since Luke won’t let us take a tick off him (we have to be Ninja about it for any success), those worry me the most. So we switched to Wondercide for a while, which I liked. But of course, I just looked at the ingredients and saw Sodium Lauryl sulfate! So I immediately went to their website for an explanation. Now they say theirs is derived from coconut oil, not petroleum, so natural and safer. What do you think?
I love that you have a service to spray your yard. We used to spray ourselves with Cedarcide. But now that we have the chickens and guinea hens, we have even more natural control! They eat a lot of bugs, including ticks. 🙂
Oh, and we also use a flea/tick tag from Only Natural Pet. I’m not sure if it works for dog ticks, but it does seem to work for fleas.
Well now you’ve got me thinking. 🙂 I imagine if SLS is derived from plants it HAS to be safer than the stuff derived from oil, at least that is what my instinct tells me. I have asked for chickens in my yard to keep the tick population under control, but Hubs says no. Besides I would worry about my fools chasing them.
I’ve thought about the flea/tick tag, but IMO they were pricey for me to try. I know using the spray twice a day works, although if offered an opportunity to try the tag, I’d probably do it. We don’t walk in the woods nearly as much as we used to, and a good many people in the neighborhood spray their yards as well.
Going via the natural route to control pests often has to be repeated but it’s so worth it. Applying poison (as you so aptly identified it) isn’t very appealing to me either. Essential oils do it for me and are my first method for removing all those little bastards and we can pretty much figure they’ll do the job. Then again I don’t have the welcome mat otherwise known as humidity to make it necessary for multiple applications. Stay safe!