Does my dog need heartworm prevention if on flea/tick meds in Ohio?

The dog should be heartworm tested and then started on a prevention, if negative. Heartgard, Interceptor, and Sentinel are all oral medications that work well with preventing heartworms. You should also treat him with a flea/tick prevention. I like oral NexGard, Bravecto, or Credellio instead of the topical spot on solutions.

You are quite welcome for the help! Unfortunately, the flea, tick, and worm medication does not protect against heartworms, that requires a different medication. Signs of heartworm include a dry cough, lethargy, weight loss, anorexia, difficulty breathing, bulging chest, and collapse. Your vet can do a blood test to diagnose if she does have heartworm or not. Have a great day :-)

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! This is a great question! Yes, you should continue to give Kirby his monthly heartworm and flea/tick prevention. The medication to kill the whipworms will not prevent heartworm or fleas/ticks and therefore he will still require the monthly preventions. Kisses to Kirby!

Yes, if you live in an area with mosquitos. Heartworms are spread by mosquitoes, not by dog to dog contact. The mosquito injects larva into the blood when they bite the dog and over six months they grow into adult heartworms that live in the heart and surrounding blood vessels. Infected dogs have many worms in their heart and they eventually die of heart failure if not treated. The treatment is expensive and can be hard on the dog. Heartworm prevention is given monthly for life and protects your dog from heartworms and intestinal parasites. There are many different safe products some that include flea prevention also. Please talk with your veterinarian about getting prevention for Sophie soon. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to help you care for Sophie.

Advantix is not protecting you dog against heartworm so it's not a very good option, you would want a product that covers also for heartworm such as Revolution or Advocate (although heartworm is not a real concern if you live in Bosnia). here is alink that will provide you all the information you need regarding heartworm: https://www.heartwormsociety.org/pet-owner-resources/heartworm-basics

Heart worms are transmitted by mosquitoes. Since it is impossible to keep mosquitoes out of the house, your dogs can be infected even if they never go outside. So this is why it is important to do heart worm prevention. Your dogs will need to have heart worm tests done before they can get prescription heart worm medication.

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 :-)