Hi Does anyone have a preferred tick treatment for their lab? We have a 5 month old lab and have been advised by our vet to use a seresto collar but have not used one on our previous dogs so not sure how effective they are. We use advocate for her flea treatment but we live in an area where ticks can be a problem. Thanks all.
I've put Seresto collars on both my Labs this year as they're prone to picking up ticks where they're exercised. So far I haven't found any.
Just to pick up on the flea subject... My approach, with my own dogs, is to avoid treating dogs preventatively for fleas. If I see a flea, then I do treat the dog with oral Capstar - and perhaps continue treatment with oral Program for a few months, to break the flea life cycle. And if my dogs retrieve rabbits, that dog is treated with Capstar right away. Alternatively, if someone had specific circumstances which meant that they are regularly battling fleas, such as many animals coming and going from the house etc - that might be a reason to treat preventatively too. But treating the vast majority of dogs preventatively for fleas involves monthly administering pesticides - when the vast majority of the time, there is nothing there to treat. In the last 15 years, I've seen 3 fleas. At which point, I treat all the dogs in the house and that's the end of it. Think how much flea treatment I've avoided using... Fleas only carry the flea tapeworm, which should be picked up anyway by your regular wormer. So there's no risk of them passing anything else onto your dog. For ticks, they can carry tick-borne diseases which are a huge concern - so it is becoming increasingly necessary to protect dogs during the warmer months of the year in many locations. I do prefer the seresto or scalibor collars - because they can be removed if the dog has a reaction. With spot-ons and with oral tick meds, you have no way of removing the medication, should the dog react to it. There is also a long history and safety record with these collars, compared to concerns about newer meds like Bravecto... Having said that, the oral tick meds do only treat the dog concerned and don't expose people in the household to the pesticides - which collars and spot-ons, will.
