CockersOnline Forum
Cocker Specific Discussion => Health => Topic started by: Helen on June 14, 2009, 09:15:45 AM
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I have long thought that the chemicals in spot on treatments for ticks and fleas have to have some long term effects on dogs and after using frontline once on Jarv and reading up on it I now refuse to preventative treat him in this way - this article has been around for years but it's worth reading...
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:pJoMrA4DeOEJ:www.apnm.org/publications/resources/fleachemfin.pdf+fleachemfin&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:pJoMrA4DeOEJ:www.apnm.org/publications/resources/fleachemfin.pdf+fleachemfin&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)
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and here's her follow on article on IPM
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:fqb2kcA6ch8J:www.homevet.com/petcare/documents/fleacontrol.pdf+kathleen+dudley+IPM&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:fqb2kcA6ch8J:www.homevet.com/petcare/documents/fleacontrol.pdf+kathleen+dudley+IPM&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)
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Hmmm, interesting. Have skimmed through that but I agree, anything that is called a 'pesticide' is not something I want to put on any of my animals unless I absolutely have to. >:( I never use preventative flea treatments on my cats or on Coco and in nearly 4 years none of them have ever had fleas :D That is a lot of chemicals that they would have had in their systems absolutely unecessarily :-\
I do put tea tree and lavender oil in Coco's shampoo but doubt that is preventing them as she is hardly ever bathed. :005: She also has garlic in her food which probably helps. If she did have fleas, however, I would definitely try a natural remedy like tea tree first to get rid of them - that is absolutely magic stuff ;) Much prefer to avoid chemicals if I can - the list of ingredients and their potential harmful effects is terrifying :o If I could avoid using a chemical wormer too I would but since Coco has a lovely habit of eating poo I have to take that risk. ::) :-\
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I'm sure that there is a risk to a dogs health by using preventative treatments such as this but it is clear from those articles that the extent and nature of the risk have not been defined or confirmed.
While I understand that all dog owners have a choice in terms of risk management, I think it is easy to *forget* the risks that we all subject our dogs to every day without question; dogs are killed in road accidents, as passengers in cars, by adder bites and all sorts of of other day-to-day risks that we have "accepted" are a part of day to day life. I would suggest that some of the day-to-day risks to our dogs are far greater than the possible risks posed by medications :-\
In the case of preventative medication in order to keep dogs healthy - IMO, they are also day-to-day risks that I have to accept if I am to share my lives with dogs. If the risk was unacceptable to me, then the alternative is no dogs :'(
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Thanks for this, its really interesting - and very timely for me as well!
I havn't used any flea or tick treatment for about a year as I was worried about the chemicals, despite my vet telling me 'its perfectly safe!' She already thinks I'm paranoid for titre testing :005:
However this year there seems to be loads of ticks around, Bens not had any yet, but I was just considering ordering some of the dreaded Frontline to try to prevent him picking any up, but might think again ;)
Bens mum
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Frontline won't prevent him picking up ticks - it will only kill them once they are attached... (it normally takes about 24hrs to kill them off!)
;)
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Frontline won't prevent him picking up ticks - it will only kill them once they are attached... (it normally takes about 24hrs to kill them off!)
;)
thanks for that ph34r I always assumed it helped prevent ticks attaching as well - whoops! So thats another good reason not to use a spot on treatments, just check for ticks and remove!
Bens mum
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Rachel, confirmed or not, I don't want to be the person that finds it's dog has been affected with cancer (for eg) connected to the poisons in pesticides (which will never be proved as the drug companies make far too much money by scaring people into buying pesticides for their dogs...)
I don't think it's worth the risk for a tick or fleas when there are other ways of naturally controlling the problem.
As Joules says, 4 years of no fleas and removing ticks rather than flooding a dog with pesticide is a far preferable option :D
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In the case of preventative medication in order to keep dogs healthy - IMO, they are also day-to-day risks that I have to accept if I am to share my lives with dogs. If the risk was unacceptable to me, then the alternative is no dogs :'(
But a dog can be perfectly healthy (some might say more so :shades: ) without using those preventatives :dunno: I choose to feed Coco a healthy and natural diet with as few additives as possible, so using chemicals on her uneccesarily would be completely at odds with that. :shades: If she was ill and needed medication then that is a different matter. ;) I agree with Helen, confirmed or not, I do not want to use chemicals on myself or my animals if I don't need to :-\
Of course there are risks in everyday life but a lifestyle risk eg traffic or adder bites are completely different imo to the use of chemicals for a perceived risk that may not even exist. :-\
With ticks, since the treatments only kill the tick once it has attached, I would far prefer to check Coco over every day and use the faithful O'Tom. ;) :005: I know of several people who have had ticks attach to them - doesn't mean they should use Frontline on themselves does it?
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In the case of preventative medication in order to keep dogs healthy - IMO, they are also day-to-day risks that I have to accept if I am to share my lives with dogs. If the risk was unacceptable to me, then the alternative is no dogs :'(
Of course there are risks in everyday life but a lifestyle risk eg traffic or adder bites are completely different imo to the use of chemicals for a perceived risk that may not even exist. :-\
Totally agree. :D We face life style risks every day, but I don't treat myself against the risk of nits. :shades:
I have never treated my dogs routinely against fleas and my vets are perfectly happy with that.
I did, however, treat them with Advantix before we went to Scotland last summer as I was worried about ticks and the increased risk of Lyme's disease in that area. :-\
And this summer we are going to France, so they will have to be treated again. ::)
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This is a fascinating thread and one I wish Id read 3 hours earlier - I JUST frontlined both dogs this morning, because Alfie is going in for general anaesthetic tomorrow.
Can I just ask what, if any, alternative treatments you will use, livercake? Would bathing in tea tree oil help, like it is supposed to with nits?
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I recently read about a case (in the US) regarding small dogs and flea & tick treatments when I was looking for the best price on flea treatments. It was quite shocking how chemicals can build up quite quickly in the system of a small dog (it would seem that it isn't as great a risk for large dogs), but it definitely has made me question whether I need to use these products and perhaps look for natural alternatives.
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Have only 'skimmed through' the article, but this has to my mind confirmed my beliefs that putting pesticides/chemicals on your dogs is not conducive to their long term health. I use Frontline at the start of the summer on mine, usually just once or twice a year but after reading this, no i won't even be using it at all now. I also believe that yearly vaccinations are not needed (mine are vaccinated every other year, apart from yearly lepto) and 'over-vaccinating' may possibly cause auto-immune disease.
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This is a fascinating thread and one I wish Id read 3 hours earlier - I JUST frontlined both dogs this morning, because Alfie is going in for general anaesthetic tomorrow.
Can I just ask what, if any, alternative treatments you will use, livercake? Would bathing in tea tree oil help, like it is supposed to with nits?
I usually put a tiny bit of garlic in his food to help, am pretty vigilant with the flea comb too....on the IPM Link there is a lot of info about natural deterrents - and a few drops of tea tree oil or lavender oil in a carrier oil is recommended as a spray on.
like Coco, Jarv has a few drops of oil in his shampoo - but we seldom bathe him ::)
I can remember pre spot-ons when my mum used to cope with (much hotter and longer) NZ summers and dogs and fleas...it never was much of a problem. The dogs were flea combed until there were no signs (all fleas/dirt/eggs were deposited in a separate bucket of water and then poured down the toilet) and then bathed. She did have some kind of 'new-fangled' (to her) tea tree oil spray to use when the dogs were dry and that was that.
The area where the dogs were bathed (outside hose) was then treated with DE (diatomaceous earth) when it dried out, as was most of the lawn (usually early in the morning of a day we all went out so any dust settled by the time we were home)
feeling really itchy now ph34r
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I have had the unfortunate experience of having severe flea infestations in barn cats. I tried every natural remedy I could find with no luck, so I think in the case of severe problems (which a couple of fleas can quickly get out of control) so I think the spot ons are a necessary evil.
They are probably far less harmful than the old dips, bombs, sprays, etc. but I do agree that anything that kills one or two species has the potential to harm another. It does appear, though, that most dogs are able to process it, even immune compromised dogs. Crackers got fleas pretty badly after she was diagnosed with AIHA and she was flea allergic so something had to be done. My vet (who is brill) recommended Advantage-of course I was terrified-but Crackers handled it well with no apparent problems from the Advantage.
Personally I only use it if I have seen fleas, I don't use it as a preventative but only as a treatment, so my use of it is spotty (pardon the pun :005:)
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this is an interesting subject, I just posted a similar question re vaccinations etc
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...could you give them an odourless garlic capsule? (Like what we hoomans have?)
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...could you give them an odourless garlic capsule? (Like what we hoomans have?)
I know some do and they're fine on them - wouldn't give them too often - have no idea if it builds up in the system but garlic is on the 'toxic to dogs' list - that's why I just put a little bit (when I remember ) on Jarv's food....
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My 3 have garlic in their food & Teatree & lavender oils added to shampoo when bathing, all as a preventative measure but would use frontline/Advocate if infested with fleas (but don't use routinely as the preventative method 'appears' to work for now ;) ) I use the O-tom & regular grooming for ticks (as I find the vet products un-effective.....they still get them despite being treated ph34r we must have the 'SAS of ticks' down here....hard as nails >:( )
Having said that, I have treated Tinker twice with Advocate (6 weeks apart) as she is due to have an op in Sept & 'just in case' she had lungworm like her mom.....I did express my concerns but was told that 'the flea treatment part of the product is plant based & is in fact edible'? (don't try this at home!! :020: ) The wormer in the product is more the problem but the risk of complications to Tinks during the op outway the poss. of reaction on this occasion.
(I also use the same method with my cats ...not the bathing bit!.....Tuppence was 18 when she went & Figit is 14 & doing fine :luv: )
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This is an ongoing worry for me. When we took over the pub the whole building was infested with fleas and it took us months to get on top of it. But the other problem is that we regularly have dogs in with customers who are heavy with fleas (the dogs not the customers :005:).
If there is one flea around OH will get bitten so we always know ::) and if Dylan gets fleas he very easily reacts badly to them. Since we can't do anything about how other people look after our dogs I had been using Frontline regularly since being here, though I hate it. My vet is bored to tears with me questioning her about it's risks. We also spray the place every 6 months :-\
For the past two months I have beentrying to eliminate all unnecessary chemicals from our lives so this one has raised its head again and I haven't treated the boys this time around. I'll see how I go on with using garlic and tea tree - I use it as a grooming spray since we hardly ever bathe the dogs. I'm also going to get a flea comb and add that to our grooming regime, though Clive's woolly sheep coat makes that one hard ::)
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We recently went to a lavender farm and the farmer told us lavender is a great flea and tick repellant. He gave me a bottle of lavender doggie shampoo.
Also it might be worth steam cleaning your floors upholstery and carpets as this will kill the eggs too.
No nasty chemicals needed.
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It goes against every grain in my body to do spot on treatments.. so for years I didn't and got away with it.
However, this year for the first time ever, we got a serious flea infestation and it has taken over 3 months and A LOT of chemicals to get completely rid of the little *******. It's been extremely bad timing as it happened when Maggie was just 6 weeks old but to be honest, having experienced this now and all of us having had A LOT of very bad bites, I WILL be treating the dogs from now on. I've lost a dog to AI so I'm no stranger to this but with young children in the house, I have to look at this with a different perspective.
I love my dogs like everyone else but for us with young children, it's not alright to run the risk of flea or worm infestations and the possible danger that brings to everyone (including the dogs) or hope for the best with garlic or lavender. I didn't use Garlic (although I always get bitten when abroad despite eating stacks of the stuff so I'm not convinced on that one :lol:) or lavender or anything on the dogs for years and didn't have a problem... I think it's more luck of the draw and how prepared you are to deal with it and live with it for potentially a few weeks if you do get an infestation. Plus as has been mentioned, Garlic is on the poison list for dogs anyway....... :huh: :huh:
ETA: Interestingly, the dog I lost to AI aged 6 was only ever treated with frontline twice in his life and it was after he'd picked up lice twice. He also was only vaccinated 3 times and never had a kennel cough treatment as he never stayed in kennels...
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I think we'll agree to disagree here Trevor - if you can tell me why 91 percent of the ingredients of Frontline are 'undisclosed' then I will reconsider my way of thinking ;) Also if you read the lengthy articles at the beginning of the thread you'll see that garlic and lavender are amongst many more natural flea control ways mentioned.
In the meantime I'll still fleacomb Jarv every day, and treat him with SMALL (which aren't poisonous) quantities of garlic and will endeavour to keep my flea and worm ridden dog away from small children (obviously he must be a risk since he's not preventatively chemically treated 'just in case' )
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I think we'll agree to disagree here Trevor - if you can tell me why 91 percent of the ingredients of Frontline are 'undisclosed' then I will reconsider my way of thinking ;) Also if you read the lengthy articles at the beginning of the thread you'll see that garlic and lavender are amongst many more natural flea control ways mentioned.
In the meantime I'll still fleacomb Jarv every day, and treat him with SMALL (which aren't poisonous) quantities of garlic and will endeavour to keep my flea and worm ridden dog away from small children (obviously he must be a risk since he's not preventatively chemically treated 'just in case' )
I can't tell you why they are undisclosed (I don't use frontline, I use Advocate) and I'm also not suggesting you should change what suits you or what you are happy with - I'm not sure why you think I am.
You're aware I've lost a dog to AI so as you can probably imagine, I have read an awful lot of articles and research on this subject and there is still no actual scientific, conclusive evidence in my mind. I'm sure there are reasons for limited research on this subject, the sceptic in me would say they are probably commercial ones.
However, there is another perspective to this which is all I've highlighted - if you are unlucky enough to get an infestation then it's an extremely unpleasant and longstanding issue to deal with and it has to be dealt with using a huge amount of chemicals AND spot on treatments. Another point to remember is that a LOT of dogs are treated with spot on treatments and live long and healthy lives. Whatever is said about garlic in that article, it's on the poison list from my vets and on countless other 'poisonous to dogs' list and as I KNOW it doesn't work for humans, it's unlikely to be really effective in a proper case of fleas, so I won't be relying on that or giving it just in case it helps :lol2: ;)
In the end it's personal choice and what is realistic for your family/lifestyle. Spot on treatments may not be for everyone and I didn't use them for years as I've already mentioned. However for us now, EVEN having lost a dog to AI, the 'risk' from spot on treatment is not outweighing the seriousness of a proper flea infestation or any other parasite problem in a home with a baby and young child. Agreeing to disagree isn't the point here I'd suggest. However, it is important to highlight other scenarios, as well as the fact that preventative treatments might possibly, in some cases have a negative health effect on the animal being treated - even if in most cases it doesn't.
Hannah
ETA. Another unpleasant side effect of our visiting friends this year, was that both dogs got tape worm... which occurs when dogs eat fleas carrying tape worm eggs. This didn't happen until about 6 weeks into us first noticing the first fleas. It was a very long and drawn out process involving a lot of medication and chemicals to deal with all the fall out from a proper flea infestation. I know looking back that Dave picked them up from a dead rabbit, so it's not just contact with other dogs that you have to watch.
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oh you can ask my SIL about flea infestation- it's terrible - it took 6 months to rid her house of fleas about 5 years ago.
she was gutted.
Worst thing was at the time she didn't even have a cat or a dog or had one visiting in the previous year - can't think they were transmitted from their goldfish :lol2: I suggested she frontline the children (that's a joke btw :shades:)
It's not just AI - in fact I haven't researched that side of it - I've been looking at potential links with cancers & heart and lung problems - eliminating anything that may have a potential link with cancer is high in my mind as the statistics for dogs with cancer are just getting higher and higher. And Advocate has a similar percentage of undisclosed ingredients.
We all do what's best in our own minds, I wouldn't continually booster children, or smear chemicals all over them, or worm them if they weren't showing any signs which is how I feel about dogs. I also feel that the vet medicine industry is very good at manipulating people into thinking that their way is the best course for pet owners and making you feel like you're a bad owner if you don't purchase and use their products regularly.
And I wouldn't let my dog eat rotting rabbits or any dead animal (or poo) he may find - his leave command is sound, but I understand that it's not that easy to instill that in some dogs....so if I had a dog that didn't have a good leave command I would worm if I couldn't stop him from eating rotting carcasses.
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People can also try and make make you feel bad FOR treating your dogs I find.
No I don't smother my children with preventative chemicals or give them extra jabs but they don't tend to come into contact with that many parasites and when they do, I treat them and they are gone 24 hours later... unlike fleas and all the undesirables that go with them.
And because my dogs are so badly behaved/trained and I let them pick up dead animals and occasionally eat them, (although they obviously don't have to eat them for the fleas to transfer), I do have to address these issues at this time in our lives.
Potential carcinogens are all around us not just in treatments - although I understand exactly why you choose not to give them, but it's important not to underestimate the potential consequences of not treating dogs/family pets also, particularly in some circumstances.
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People can also try and make make you feel bad FOR treating your dogs I find.
No I don't smother my children with preventative chemicals or give them extra jabs but they don't tend to come into contact with that many parasites and when they do, I treat them and they are gone 24 hours later... unlike fleas and all the undesirables that go with them.
And because my dogs are so badly behaved/trained and I let them pick up dead animals and occasionally eat them, (although they obviously don't have to eat them for the fleas to transfer), I do have to address these issues at this time in our lives.
Potential carcinogens are all around us not just in treatments - although I understand exactly why you choose not to give them, but it's important not to underestimate the potential consequences of not treating dogs/family pets also, particularly in some circumstances.
I am inclined to agree. Having experienced flea infestations in other houses, seen the effects of worms in dogs and cats, I am of the view that the price that must be paid if I have a hunting dog or cat living in my house is thorough parasite control. I have two friends who do not share this view, and each time Rufus meets them, he comes back with a passenger. Luckily, they do not survive. I do respect the views of others, but having seen a round worm crawling in a pile of dog muck, it turns my stomach to think about not treating my dog, so I use stronghold every 4 weeks, on the dog and cat. Perhaps that makes me cruel in the eyes of some, but I do not intend to hurt my animals, merely to deal with an unpleasant side effect and risk to human health of having parasites in the house.