Frontline vs Advantix vs tick collar

[Rolo]

Got my dog vaccinated for lyme and he is ready for the trail. I plan on applying food grade diatomaceous earth every few days as well but wanted to get input on frontline vs advantix and whether or not a collar should be used as well to go along with one of them. I am concerned about all the chemical but it sure beats tick infestation...

[rocketsocks]

Whats the story behind the D-earth?

[tdoczi]

ok, i'm sure someone will pipe in and tell me i'm wrong, but i have quite a bit of experience that both frontline and advantix and lyme vaccines are worthless as far as ticks are concerned (i suppose they may be keeping fleas off my dog, who knows). i have found advantix to be moderately less useless. at first it seemed to work much better but years later i'm going to call that an aberation. i still find live ticks feeding on my dog regularly. as for the vaccine. he gets it every year, has tested positive for lyme 3 times. i'll keep using advantix, mostly just so he doesnt get fleas from another dog at the park, but i think the 3rd strike on the lyme vaccine will be the end of it for me.

during a heated discussion with a vet about how i spend all this money making sure my dog doesnt get lyme and he gets it constantly anyway, using a collar came up. ive never tried it but i know from the discussion that it is to be used INSTEAD OF frontline/advantix, not in addition to. thats about all i know. assuming you mean a real veterinary sold collar and some crap from the grocery story, which basically everyone but the people who make them seem to know are utterly pointless.

[tdoczi]

woops, theres a word "not" missing from the last sentence of my last post

[The Old Boot]

You might want to take a look at a product called 'Revolution'.

I found it to be much more effective than either Frontline or Advantix.

The tick collars are to be used as an either or product - either a collar OR a spot medication. From what I can remember of my reading, some of the collars can be put on in advance of exposure to ticks and then taken off and sealed in a ziploc, rather than worn continually. Needless to say, the one's available OTC in the big box stores are of questionable value.

For years I had my collie vaccinated against Lyme disease, annual shots for just about everything. If I had a 'do-over' I would avoid a lot of the medications a whole lot more and he'd never have seen lyme vaccinations at all - here's something you probably should read http://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com...ccine-disease/

I'll never be able to prove it now but my gut instinct is that a whole lot of his later in life mobility problems were long term side effects.

[trublu]

I find a.bandana with bug spay really works well to keep bugs and ticks away. Frontline will only kill those that hitchike. I prefer bandana cause has multiple uses unlike flea collar.

[jcamp]

I manage a busy animal hospital in Atlanta, and if you ask me the best protection for ticks is a tick collar. I would recommend a brand called Preventic that lasts for 3 months and can be found at most vet offices or online. Frontline plus and revolution are good products but none of them get all variations of the tick and frequent bathing or swimming can diminish the efficacy over time. As for the lyme vaccination, we usually don't recommend it at my practice. One reason is that if your pet has ever been given the lyme vaccine, then they will show up positive (false positive) on most lyme tests for the rest of their life. Another good idea would be shaving your dog's fur so that you can easily see if a tick has attached so you quickly and carefully remove it.
Good luck.

[tdoczi]

I manage a busy animal hospital in Atlanta, and if you ask me the best protection for ticks is a tick collar. I would recommend a brand called Preventic that lasts for 3 months and can be found at most vet offices or online. Frontline plus and revolution are good products but none of them get all variations of the tick and frequent bathing or swimming can diminish the efficacy over time. As for the lyme vaccination, we usually don't recommend it at my practice. One reason is that if your pet has ever been given the lyme vaccine, then they will show up positive (false positive) on most lyme tests for the rest of their life. Another good idea would be shaving your dog's fur so that you can easily see if a tick has attached so you quickly and carefully remove it.
Good luck.

thats interesting, ive had the false positive argument with my vet twice now and they are insistent that isnt the case. the really interesting thing is that its always the heartworm test (which i guess is combined with a tick borne illness test) that shows positive almost without fail (once it was negative). a dedicated lyme test never comes back positive. i would have just ignored the most recent positive except it was allegedly positive for lepto also.

[tdoczi]

I find a.bandana with bug spay really works well to keep bugs and ticks away. Frontline will only kill those that hitchike. I prefer bandana cause has multiple uses unlike flea collar.

advantix is also supposed to act as a repellent. with either one though i will occasionally find live ticks that have been living on my dog for days.

before anyone lectures me about checking for ticks sooner, he has a very thick coat and sometimes they need to swell up a bit before they can be found. disgusting but true.

[jcreamer]

Jcamp is on the money regarding the preventive collar. As a small animal veterinarian in south Georgia, we have terrible problems with ticks. The Preventic collar by Virbac is the only product I am aware of that will not only kill the tick, but also make it release so you don't have to do so. When dogs come in covered in ticks, we no longer start pulling them off. We apply a collar and in about two to three hours there are dead ticks on the floor of the kennel.
Pit should be stats that there is no product known to man that will definitively kill a tick before it can attach and thus potentially transmit any of the tick transmitted diseases such as Lyme, rocky mountain spotted fever, or ehrlicia.
The collar lasts about three months.
BTW, I am in no way associated with Virbac and have no vested financial interest in your decision. Just trying to help a fellow hiker (and his friend!).
Jeff

[Spirit Walker]

We live in an area with a lot of ticks and use Frontline. Our dog has never had a tick attach in the two years we've had him. It isn't as effective against fleas though.

Shaving dogs is generally not recommended. Fur insulates dogs and actually keeps them both warmer and cooler. A shaved dog may have problems with sunburn as well.

[tdoczi]

We live in an area with a lot of ticks and use Frontline. Our dog has never had a tick attach in the two years we've had him. It isn't as effective against fleas though.

Shaving dogs is generally not recommended. Fur insulates dogs and actually keeps them both warmer and cooler. A shaved dog may have problems with sunburn as well.

i dont know how to account for the difference, but i can put frontline on my dog and take him hiking and then pull 10 ticks off of him. do you take your dog hiking in the woods or are you basing this on having never gotten a tick while out in the yard or around your house?

[pheldozer]

I live in the Northeast and my vet recommended switching from frontline to the new version of advantix. apparently, the ticks up here have become immune to frontline...but i'm always skeptical about claims like that, as well as any incentives that may have been offered to the vet in exchange for promoting one brand over the other.

my dog is 4ish, and for the 2.5 years i've had him, he's had lyme vaccines at his annual checkup, has had either frontline or advantix on him year round, and also takes the interceptor pill for heartworm and fleas... after his last stay at the kennel, he came home with fleas, and i still got whacked for a $39 dollar flea bath since "the fleas have been bad this year"

at this year's visit, he was diagnosed with lyme disease despite showing no symptoms($200 worth of followup bloodtests and a month of antibiotics later...). it may have been the antibodies that were previously mentioned, but i'm starting to think i'm just flushing money down the toilet for all of these preventative medications that have failed to prevent the illnesses and insects that they are designed and marketed to prevent!

end rant/

[Iron Owl]

You may want to checkout Vectra 3D; we're in an insanely heavy tick area and after walks in the fields/woods and Advantix/Frontline weren't cutting it. Vectra is only available from the vet (similar cost to the others though) and it has a repellent/seems to work a lot better...

[pheldozer]

thanks for the rec. think i have a month left of advantix, and will give that a try next. oddly enough, they(ticks) were the worst in february/march, and I've been seeing less and less of them as the year has gone on. hopefully we get a real winter this year, and those useless bloodsuckers lose some personnel!

anybody have any glowing success stories of switching from a collar to a preventative sauce like frontline, or visa verse?

[Ginger Snap]

Another option would be Certifect, by Merial. It is essentially frontline but with Amitraz added. Amitraz is (I think) the active ingredient in preventic collars. It is supposed to potentate the action of the s-methoprene and fipronil in the frontline. So it basically makes the ticks more active, increasing their exposure to the active ingredients, and shortening the kill/detachment time. The length of time a tick is attached is directly related to the dog/humans exposure to Lyme disease; the tick will release the spirochetes only after being attached to the host for I think, 36 hours, So you want to kill/detach the tick prior to that. I haven't used the Certifect, as I've had good luck with frontline, and don't live in a Lyme endemic area ( southwestern OH)- but the stats from the drug reps look pretty interesting.

With regards to the testing: certain tests (IDexx Quant c6 is one) will test For Lyme antibodies and will Not be affected by a prior vaccine. It may however be affected by recent antibiotic administration. Your vet should be able to iron out the details with their reference laboratory. The test mentioned above also tests for Erlichia, HW and Anaplasma. HW tests can come up false positive repeatedly through no fault of you, your vet or your pet- just be sure to find out the details of which test came back positive!

[grandadd]

(First post!)

I worked in the pet supply industry for three years, and here is my experience after talking with hundreds of customers:

1. Advantix is a fine product. (Fluid version)

2. Frontline Plus: we sold five or ten for every Advantix we sold. It was by far our best seller.

3. Frontline Plus was great, unless it didn't work for your dog. Which would happen or any or no reason. In that case we would suggest Advantix or Advantage. Personal choice by that point.

4. Flea collars were seen as useless, and a waste of money.

Any and all are welcome to disagree. But that was our firm consensus over the years.

[SixFizzle]

I'm going to agree with Iron Owl on the Vectra 3D. I have 4 dogs, work in the veterinary industry and have used multiple products to kill fleas/ticks and Vectra 3D has worked the best for my dogs. Since I live in an area with a large tick problem, I apply it every 28 days vs every 30. I also give them the Lyme vaccine annually (the Merial vaccine). Here's a little science on the vaccine, ticks and Lyme tests. If you hate science (or wordy posts), by all means skip the rest of this post

To understand how Lyme is transmitted, you need to understand how ticks feed. They attach, take a blood meal, regurgitate that back into the host and then take another blood meal. Hence, the delay in transmission of tick-borne illnesses.

No vaccine is 100% effective. Merial's Lyme vaccine is completely different than any other vaccines you normally give your dog. Most vaccines are either a live or killed virus which stimulates your dog's immune system and helps them build immunity to the virus. The Merial Lyme vaccine works IN THE TICK. It prevents the Lyme spirochete from leaving the potentially infected tick's body as it feeds. it does not give the dog immunity to Lyme.

And finally, testing. The tests for Lyme disease are controversial when it comes to diagnosing an active infection vs documenting exposure. In my opinion, the 3DX and 4DX snap tests are worthless. They only indicate exposure and often have false negatives. In truth, most of the veterinary staff who perform these tests are not adequately trained to do so and something as simple as reversing the amount of blood and the amount of solution can cause the test to give incorrect results. Not to mention reading the test too early or too late (you have to read it at a specific time frame). In the 15+ years I have worked in the industry, I know of at least 30 patients who were symptomatic and tested negative on the snap but positive on the C6 and hundreds who tested positive but never had symptoms. Antech (popular veterinary lab) has a new test called the Accuplex. It tests for heartworm and tickborne illnesses and indicates if a dog has been vaccinated. It's a fairly new test so I can't say too much other than that. In my experience, testing for tickborne illness is warranted when the pet is symptomatic. different vets have differing opinions on whether to treat a dog that tests positive but is asymptomatic. personally, I wouldn't give my dog 2-4 weeks of antibiotics if they weren't symptomatic but that's just me.

[Trail Bug]

I would not go with a collar. I really believe that it caused my dog to get throat cancer from having the chemicals around her neck for a long period.

[Hairbear]

although this has nothing to do with on trail conditions,but the way to keep ticks off your dog without putting the poison on it.most ticks draw blood from mice to reproduce,so if you put the frontline on a cotton ball and put the cotton ball outside by your buidings in forested areas you use.the mice will take the cotton back to their home for insulation to keep warn,now you have front line treated mice with ticks dieing as they bug their normal meal,the more you kill on the mice the less there are to bug your pet.