2018: It’s Now “Tick and Flea Control”

In Ohio we’ve historically called it “flea control.”  You may recall the names: Frontline, Advantage, Advantix, ParastarPlus, the many generic versions of Frontline.  Then some ticks were found in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, so we brought on Bravecto and then Simparica and called it “flea and tick control.”  But now in 2018 I’m calling it “tick and flea control.”

We’ve discussed on these pages how ticks are officially here in Summit County.  Back in the middle of 2016, the reported Lyme disease rate (which is lower than the actual rate for reasons that are more technical than I like to address in blog posts and would make you very sleepy if I did) in Summit County was 1 in 112 dogs testing positive.

Well, here we are, just past the first quarter of 2018, emerging from a very cold winter, and the reported rate for our county is already 1 in 37 dogs testing positive for Lyme disease.  We are quickly approaching the rate our neighbors to the east in Allegheny (think Pittsburgh), Beaver, Butler & Washington Counties, PA, are currently experiencing, 1 in 6 dogs testing positive for Lyme disease.

Fleas are no fun, and we want to prevent them from making our pets miserable and overrunning our homes.  But fleas aren’t carrying disease on northeast Ohio while ticks are capable of carrying multiple diseases.  This is why I’m shifting to using the term “tick/flea control.”  The priority has become the tick, and for our pets sake, for our sake, we need to be very proactive in approaching tick control.

And while we’re talking about ticks and the diseases they carry, you ought to know that there is a very good, technologically advanced, effective Lyme disease vaccine for dogs, and we’re at the point in northeast Ohio where all dogs ought to be protected against Lyme disease.  If your dog has not received a Lyme disease vaccine, be sure to call us to set up a time to get this started.

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