Fleas & Ticks

Going down to the heart of Dixie in April and wondered  what experiences with fleas & ticks getting into the rig via the dog?  Any solutions?  Don't know if it will be no problem, a minor problem or worse. Headed to the woods by a lake in Georgia.

I have 2 dogs and I also am a groomer,I use a Seresto collar for them. It's an 8 month collar for fleas,ticks,lice, and some types of mange. They are great for dogs that get wet alot also! If you do decide to take a chance and not put anything on your pup,they make an odorless spray by Ortho called Home Defense. It's around $10 for a gallon at WalMart and it kills fleas on contact. Hope this helps,your best bet is to use protection on your pup and you should be fine. The fleas and ticks are going to be worse than usual due to the overly warm winter. Remember if you get fleas on your pup and they come inside,the flea eggs hatch every 2 days,which becomes a nightmare fast. We hike with our dogs and they get into water and pretty much everything,and I haven't seen fleas or ticks for the last 2 years. Seresto is perfect for you, it will take you through the entire season.

There is definitely a chance for fleas and ticks being a problem and personally even one bite from either can transmit diseases so I consider them a big concern all the time.  You can protect the animal (and your rig) by using topical treatments (I think once per month) of medications that are safe for mammals, but kill insects.  It is a small amount of a gel like substance applied to the skin on the upper neck.  Of more concern is the pooch contracting heartworm from mosquito bites.  Again there are safe monthly meds to protect them but you need to contact a vet about this before proceeding (unless of course you already use a heartworm preventative).  Ask your veterinarian and get the appropriate meds from them for controlling the fleas and ticks in the proper dosage. 

Grooming the dog with a proper comb after being out and about is another way to remove them, but not as fool proof as the meds.

You may already know this, but I'll add that people need to do a tick check also.  A full body scan (in yer birthday suit) and careful inspection of all clothing is recommended.  Or, clothing can be wrapped in bags until laundered.  Baby ticks are difficult to detect, but they have all the mouth parts to dig in just like the adults.

Please click on the link below for the results of a Google search about fleas and ticks in Georgia. Lots of good info.

https://www.google.com/search?sclient=tablet-gws&site=&source=hp&q=Fleas+and+ticks+in+Georgia&oq=Fleas+and+ticks+in+Georgia&gs_l=tablet-gws.3..0i22i30k1.4047.21457.0.22945.27.18.1.8.8.0.175.1788.13j5.18.0....0...1c.1j4.64.tablet-gws..0.26.1765.0..0j0i131k1.zagu6VVO68U

Bravecto, once every 3 months.

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=bravecto&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Talk to your vet, since we started with this, no fleas; period.

Seresto collar user here. We have used them for three years now, SIL uses them, our sons use them on their dogs and cats. They work great for us. I have read where some dogs have had an adverse reaction to the collar, but we haven't experienced that. What we did was put the collar on early in the morning and watched ours closely to see if they kept acting normal.

Fleas are very common in the warm sandy soils of the southeastern US, and yes their nits get into carpets when the pets carry fleas inside. Ticks drop off branches and underbrush and latch onto the pets (or people) if they roam through, but I've not seen them inside the RV except as passengers on animals or humans. Ticks have to be picked off one by one. Comb the pet to find them.

We use Frontline and Advantage on our cat and find that it works best if we change brands back & forth every 3-6 months. Fleas breed a new generation every 3 or so weeks, so maybe they develop some immunity to a brand after awhile.  These work on both fleas and ticks.

If you have carpets, the nits (eggs) get down in the fibers and it takes multiple insecticide treatments over 3-6 weeks to break the hatching cycle. The "flea foggers" (Raid, Sentry) etc) seem to work inside and without side effects. You have to vacate for a few hours, though.

Call your vet. We always used a prescription topical once a month for fleas and ticks. As another poster has said, the more important item for your dogs health is heart worm prevention. Warm climates have the mosquitos that transmits heart worms, and they can kill your dog. My sister always said it was "too expensive" (it isn't), but the heart worm treatment her dog required almost killed him and cost much more than an entire lifetime of treatment. Note that I takes a while for the preventative to be effective, and the vet has to do testing first to make sure no heart worm infection is present before giving you the preventative.

I have three indoor only cats and they ended up with a lot of fleas after I had lived in Florida for a few years. I tried all the sprays, collars and treatments and nothing worked until I used Advantage. One pill for each cat and they all disappeared and have not returned after over a year.

We have been using a combination of Frontline, and Revolution.
The Revolution is a monthly topical that also contains heartworm preventative. It requires a Vet's prescription, and the only reliable source we have found is through 800petmeds.com.

The only ticks we have had in 10 years are the ones I have managed to bring home from my outings in the brush.
I wonder if they make flea and tick collars for humans.

Some great options here. I've been meaning to look into Seresto.

LarsMac said:

We have been using a combination of Frontline, and Revolution.
The Revolution is a monthly topical that also contains heartworm preventative. It requires a Vet's prescription, and the only reliable source we have found is through 800petmeds.com.

The only ticks we have had in 10 years are the ones I have managed to bring home from my outings in the brush.
I wonder if they make flea and tick collars for humans.

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You could put a collar on each ankle, each wrist and 1 around your neck.  : Let us know how it works.  ;D

Rene T said:

You could put a collar on each ankle, each wrist and 1 around your neck.  : Let us know how it works.  ;D

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Perhaps you should refrain from letting your wife adjust the neck collar, just saying!

whiteva said:

Perhaps you should refrain from letting your wife adjust the neck collar, just saying!

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Good point. Thanks. You're a life saver. I'll have to remember that.  :'( :-\ :-[

Rene T said:

Good point. I'll have to remember that.  :'( :-\ :-[

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A flea collar on your dog would be redundant. The flea would be bigger than the dog.

SeilerBird said:

A flea collar on your dog would be redundant. The flea would be bigger than the dog.

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Maybe I could put it on the flea.  ;D