dogboston

Jo, I just moved to the North shore and I am concerned about ticks & Lyme disease. As per my vet, Frontline & Lyme vaccine is the best option. Would you agree? Are there better options?

Hi,

That all depends, and mostly it depends on your dog’s immune system — it can do more harm than good in certain cases.

We DO line in a high-Lyme area (there’s a couple more tick-borne diseases as well). HOWEVER — there can be issues with the Lyme vaccine (as well as some others). You may want to research it a bit first, you can start here: http://www.itsfortheanimals.com/DODDS-CHG-VACC-PROTOCOLS.HTM

Did you move from a non-lyme tick area? If so, you may want to have the first round of Lyme vaccines then titer afterwards.

Frontline can be effective at keeping away ticks/cleas (believe it or not, the regular Frontline, NOT the Plus, is MORE effective). Again, depending on your own dog’s immune system, sometimes it can do more harm than good.

Do you feed a commercial food or home-prepare, or a combination? If you home-prepare or feed a combo, you can also add a bit of garlic powder (NOT garlic salt) and some rosemary to your dog’s food as you prepare it — this will help repel fleas and ticks quite well (in 5 years, we’ve had no fleas and only one tick for all 3 of our dogs). There are also quite a few natural recipes (herbs, essential oils, etc) that you can mix up and spray on your dog (and you!) to repel the little buggers.

No matter what you decide to do, remember to do DAILY, if not twice-daily, checks for Ticks and remove them quickly. If you remove them within the first 24 hours, you won’t have any issues with Lyme — after that, your chances will increase.

Jo Jacques CPDT, CPCT
WiggleBums! Dog-Friendly Training & Behavior
www.wigglebums.com