Most popular these days are the spot-on treatments such as Frontline, Advantage, Revolution and Bio-Spot. These brands of pet flea treatments all provide a month of guaranteed protection. Bad news to the flea, Advantage flea works due its active ingredient imidacloprid, which works on the nervous system of the flea causing paralysis and subsequent death. Within 12 hours of application, 98-100 percent of fleas are dead. Frontline and Advantage brand flea killers work nearly instantaneously and keep working for a long time.
Your pet should not be a victim of fleas when relief is readily available. The best solution is to pick a good flea medication for your dog. Ticks, also known as mites, are external parasites that feast on the blood of birds and mammals, and reptiles. Of the five common ticks in North America, the American dog tick is the best known. As far as disease transmission to humans goes, ticks come in at a frightening second place to mosquitoes. Everyone knows that Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness, but ticks also spread Rocky Mountain spotted fever, equine encephalitis, and ehrlichiosis.
They also transmit diseases found in pets and livestock. Wood ticks are another kind of mite, living in the Rocky Mountains. Dog tick treatments include tick collars and dogs' flea/tick shampoos. For effective tick control, dogs should be checked in tick season (warm weather = more ticks) and if a tick is found, it should be removed entirely. If you are not careful, part of the tick may be left in the wound, increasing the likelihood of infection.
As opposed to tick-borne diseases, heartworm is mosquito-borne; the heartworm larvae are deposited by the mosquito in the new host. The parasites enter multiple steps before reaching maturity When heart worms mature into adults, they make their way to feed off the blood in the heart. This can cause symptoms including coughing, difficulty breathing, and ultimately heart failure.
If the disease is caught early enough, there are treatments available that may prevent the death of a pet from this parasitic disease. Interceptor for dogs is one such treatment, which also tackles hookworms and ascarid infections in one fell swoop. Kennel cough is yet another a common ailment for dogs.
This is a form of bronchitis which can hit dogs hard, and readily spreads from one animal to another when many canines are held together in the same facility. However, the infection can be treated with proper use of antibiotics, and it can even be prevented with vaccinating for canine adenovirus, distemper, parainfluenza, and bordetella.
Dog lover Rebecca Foxton can help you defend your dog or cat's health with Frontline Plus. She is a contributor on the recognized site www.dogbuffs.com with her series of posts on Advantage Flea Control.