in winter do u still use flea meds??
me and my hubby have been talking about this for some time. i know they say that during the winter u should still keep them on flea and heartworm meds but during the winter all the nasty bugs go and hibernate, so how would my cats and dogs get fleas? i know that heartworm is transmitted through mosquitoes but they also go away for the winter.
so my question is once the snow hits the ground...does any one still put on the flea stuff?
also my cats are indoor and they are on revolution and since we are moving i cant just go to my vet and buy it, so now i have to spend around 200 for the vet to see them and test them for heartworm, do u think they will be fine or should i keep them on it?
please dont get me wrong i LOVE my animals and want them to be healthy and i do everything i cant to make sure they are happy/healthy but i just wondering if this was a vets way of us spending more money or if it is really true. i have been wondering about this for awile
thank u!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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I do not do a heartworm preventative for my cats. Heartworm infections behave very differently in cats and the risk is, in my opinion, minimal. When you consider how badly many cats seem to react to so many medications (compared with dogs), I would rather keep things to a minimum for the cats.
If you do not do heartworm year-round for your dog, you will need to blood-test in the spring before you start again. For that reason, and because of the general intestinal worm effect, I keep mine on heartworm medication year round. It really depends, but here we frequently get warm weather into November and pick it up again in March, so to skip it for Dec, Jan, and Feb is just not worth it to me if it means having to get them to the vet for a blood-draw every year in March.
As for flea treatment, if fleas are your primary issue I would only treat as-needed. My main concern here is ticks (we're in a Lyme disease hot-spot) and so I use the flea and tick stuff year round too.
You will get conflicting advice and ultimately we all choose based on our own situations.
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Permalink Reply by Rebecca Marie O'Bryan on
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i see what u mean, im thinking about just putting the flea stuff on when it gets warm but keeping him on his h/w preventative. i know what u mean about cats being so sensitive to things, my cat yoda gets sick if he gets his shots and if i have to use flea shampoo on him. my other cats gets groggy when i use the revolution, i figure since there indoor there really is no reason for them to be getting a medication that is going to make them feel crappy. my vet also said that a cats immune system actually fights off h/w infection to a certain extent
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Permalink Reply by Chris West on
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I talked to my vet about this the last time we were in for a checkup, and she greatly recommended keeping Frosty on flea meds and heartworm pills all year long. She used explanations like, you never know what your friends dog is going to bring to your house, or if you are going to have an emergency and pets have to be boarded or sent to someone else's house, etc.
For the cats, I used to treat the one we took camping, but not the 2 that stayed in the house 24/7. Now that we moved and I don't let any of them outside, I have stopped treating all of them. Just be sure to wash hands really well if petting other animals before you pet your own cats.
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i see what u mean about that, of course if i see fleas i bathe them but if to cold i always keep cap star laying around :) my vet did say the same thing. but i did figure that since the cats are indoor that there really isnt a reason to give them monthly treatment that makes them kinda sick
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Permalink Reply by Carla on
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I think it really depends on where you live, and what kinds of concerns there are within your locale. We don't have a huge tick problem here in Edmonton, but during the winter and spring months, Canine Lice is very common.
Thus for me, lice is the biggest concern over the winter months, and I treat accordingly. Casey got lice last December, and it was terrible. It also cost us quite a bit in vet bills because they didn't notice until she went in for her spay, and we ended up paying for her to be anesthetized, shaved, and then woken up (without the spay) after they discovered lice on her belly. Then we paid for lice shampoo/treatment and treatment for hives (which happened when they shaved her hyper-sensitive belly).
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im sorry to hear that this happened to her.i heard of this but i dont think its in my area. i know advantix takes care of the lice but i have never seen it before. i will be moving to DC so im thinking it will be like michigan my original home state. very cold from october till april
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Permalink Reply by Nancy and Harley on
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I live in Southern Indiana, and our winters vary as far as how cold it gets. Sometimes our winters are too mild. Our vet says it's best to keep the dogs on flea meds all year, which we do. We use Advantage and never see a flea. They take Iverhart for heartworms.
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i have been using advantix and i havnt seen a flea and we dont have ticks that bad but since we r moving to DC im not sure
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Permalink Reply by Heather and Ella on
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It really does depend on how cold your winters get. Here in Michigan the winters get below 0, so I don't give Ella flea stuff during the super cold months (Nov,Dec,Jan,Feb). During summer, we do have ticks, so she has to have one that does both fleas and ticks.
But she is also the only pet in our house, and she doesn't go to any kind of dog care/sitter/boarding, so her chances of picking up fleas is kinda low.
I would think that if your animals are exposed to other animals a great deal, that you'd want to keep them on flea stuff all the time. It only takes one flea from someone else's animal to infest your whole house.
As for heartworm, we do that year-round. Ella doesn't like the blood test, but loves her heartworm pills. Easier for us to just do those once a month without the stop. We get "Iverhart Max, chewable tablets 12.1-25lbs" from the vet's office. For 6 months it's about $23.
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i use to live in michigan:) we will be moving to DC so i could imagine that the temps will be anout the same. i also use iverhart max, he loves it to so im thinking that i will just keep him on his h/w meds
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Do you mean Washington DC? They can get cold snaps, but it's far enough south that they get long stretches above freezing in winter.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/homeandgarden/home/wxclimatology/mon...
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thank u for the link:) that really helped me out as i didnt really know about the weather there lol but yea i will be living in washington DC in 22 days(we r sooooo excited lol)
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