Moving to Florida: What flea, tick, and worm meds are best for my dog?

For heat worm prevention, I recommend Heartgard Plus. You can get it via prescription from your vet. As for flea treatment, I recommend Advantage or Revolution. They are monthly spot on treatments and are excellent products. You can also get them from your vet's office. I would find a local vet for your dogs so you can get these medications. Good on you for getting this done!

Congratulations on your new dog! I like Revolution if you are looking for a topical product. It consistently works well and is well tolerated. If you like the idea of an oral product better, I like Trifexis (it’s another all in one product). Sometimes though the pets can smell the Trifexis and they won’t eat it. In that instance, I like Simparica and Interceptor. My personal preference is oral products. I hope this helps and please feel free to post any additional questions.

I recommend oral flea & tick preventatives. There are several brands, and all are effective: Nexgard, Simparica, and Credelio are monthly, or Bravecto which is given every 12 weeks. My top two are Nexgard and Bravecto. These are prescription products available from your veterinarian. Hope this helps!

Great question! Nexgard kills the deer tick as well as fleas and American dog tick/rocky mountain tick, and lone star tick. It is an oral pill as well, so I would us that for your dogs. Because Nexgard doesn't protect again heartworms, you will have to give your dogs Heartgard as well, which is available by prescription only from the vet. Advantix is a spot on treatment that treats the same things as Nexgard, but you would also have to use Heartgard as well for the heartworms. These two medications (Nexgard and Advantix) are for dogs only. As for the cats, Simparica prevents five types of ticks, so this may work for your cats :-)

I would not recommend using Frontline Plus for dogs living in Florida. Frontline has been around a long time and it seems as though fleas are becoming resistant to it . I suggest you try one of the new oral flea/tick pills (Nexgard, Bravecto or Simparica). You can go to any of the VETCO vaccine clinics inside Petco stores to consult with the vet and get one of these products. Take your dog with you. Here are the upcoming clinics in your area. https://www.vetcoclinics.com/services-and-clinics/clinic-locations-and-schedules/?zip=33433 Remember, you also need to treat the house and the outside environment in order to get the fleas under control. Also, all pets in the house should be on a monthly flea prevention.

Great question! You are correct there are a lot of options out there, and there isn't a treatment that covers all of them. I will give you my opinion on the best medications for many of these things. Because Arthur spends time running in the woods, tick protection is quite important for him, so I recommend giving him NexGard. It protects against three different types of ticks as well as fleas, and because it's a chew, you don't have to worry about it washing off if he gets wet within 24 hours of giving it to him. It's safe to give along with heartworm protection, and for that I recommend giving Arthur Heartgard. It's an excellent heartworm preventative, and when I lived in the US, it's what I used on my dogs (there's no heartworm in New Zealand, so no need for me to use it now). Be sure to have him tested for heartworm first before giving him this medication. The test can be done by your vet. As for worms, I recommend Drontal. It's available by prescription only from the vet, but it kills roundworms, hookworms, whipworms, and tapeworms.

I like Advantage. I use it on my dogs with great success. Keep in mind as well you have to disinfect the environment, as fleas live there and not on the animal. They only jump on the animal to feed. Wash Mocha's bedding in hot soapy water, and vacuum the furniture and carpet surfaces. You can use a spray to kill fleas in the house, such as Indorex, or a flea bomb would work well to kill the fleas in the home. I hope this helps!