According to the University of Wisconsin deer ticks feed only three times in their two-year lives. If your dog, however, provides only a single meal for one deer tick, he could develop Lyme disease. He could also carry disease-bearing deer ticks into your home. Preventing deer ticks from getting to your pet simply makes sense.
-
Finding Your Alternatives
-
The University of Delaware Extension service advises that you discuss deer tick prevention strategies with your veterinarian before choosing a specific control program.
Different options include a tick collar saturated with acaride (tick repellent), prescription topical medications, and property management to minimize your pet's exposure to deer ticks.
Property Management
-
Keep deer ticks away from your dogs, says the Cornell University Cooperative Extension, by discourage both white mice and deer from visiting your property. White mice are hosts for the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. Deer, of course, are a favorite target of deer ticks.
Ask your county extension service when to start surveying for ticks in your area. Drag your property for ticks weekly early in the morning after the dew has evaporated.
Attach a 3-by-3 foot square of light-colored cloth to a wooden dowel. Secure a rope to the dowel's ends, grasp it in the middle, and drag the cloth behind you as you walk your lawn and areas of low-growing vegetation. Keep the cloth in contact with the grass or vegetation. Check it every 30 seconds for ticks and nymphs. With tweezers drop the ones you find in a vial of alcohol.
You'll uncover only about 10 percent of the ticks on your property, but will learn which areas should be off-limits to your dog. Clean up the humid dark spots like wood and leaf piles where ticks like to congregate. Also, clean out storage areas where mice might nest and fence off your property to keep deer from invading.
Collars and Topical Applications
-
Dr. Patricia A. Pyne, DVM, PhD, suggests using a topical application to keep ticks off your dog. The most commonly prescribed ones are amitraz, fipronil and prermethrin. Permethrin, however, is toxic to cats so might not be an option for you.
Virbac's Preventic collar is saturated with a 9 percent amitraz oil-based solution. Amitraz paralyzes deer ticks' mouth parts, keeping them from attaching. It also kills attached ticks.
Place the collar on your dog so that it touches her fur, adjusting it so that you can slip two fingers beneath it. Snip off and dispose of the excess. Check it periodically and tighten as necessary. Bathing may remove the medication from your pet's fur. Don't use the collar on a puppy younger than 12 weeks.
Fipronil, marketed as Frontline, is sold in both spray and spot applications. Apply the spray along your dog's back and the spot application by parting the fur at the base of his neck between the shoulder blades and emptying the tube onto his skin.
Frontline lasts for 30 days, killing both attached and new deer ticks. You can bathe your pet while you use Frontline. Don't use it on puppies less than 8 weeks old, sick or aged dogs.
Apply permethrin, sold as K9 Advantix, in the same way as Frontline spot treatment. When treating a larger dog, put it in three or four spots along his back instead of concentrating it between his shoulder blades. Don't use it on puppies younger than 7 weeks, sick or aged dogs.
If you notice your dog's skin becoming irritated from any of these products, give him a bath and consult with your vet.
-