Alternatives to parasite treatments

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I had a lecture from a fellow dog walker yesterday about 'poisoning' my dogs with monthly parasite treatment. She uses garlic, apple vinegar and other natural things to prevent parasites. I was quite dismissive but now I'm wondering if I was too hasty? I don't want flea infestations or my dogs to suffer from the effects of things like lung worm, but equally I don't want to overload my dogs with dogs toxic nasties.

We have heart worm and paralysis ticks here so our dogs are fully covered for ticks, heartwom, fleas and intestinal worms.

I vaccinate every year, we’re rural so rats are a problem. Largo isn’t an issue for us personally but the vets see about 3 cases a year and it’d be just my luck to have the dogs in the vets when they had a parvo patient come in so I don’t take the risk.

I figure that the vets know what they’re talking about and they always try to find a cheaper alternative for us so I’m confident in their advice. Plus they don’t hassle me to have my youngest castrated (he’s a stud dog) and they happily give advice over the phone rather than insisting they come straight in if it can be avoided.

SwimmingtheBlueLagoon they work on my hairy collies and spaniel.

The whole point is that they remove the ticks before they attach - when they are still at the spider stage. It can take several hours /days for the spiders to attach to the dogs.

If they do attach just remove with tick remover. - it is worth using the lint even if you do use chemical treatment as it stops the attachment.

Usain I was thinking more along the lines of; I think mine are getting them in the garden, so if I lint rollered them every time they came back in the house (whether that's from the garden or a walk) but it missed one and the vile tick attached but I didn't spot it, could the lint roller then pull the body off an attached tick, the next time I rollered them?

I'm keen to stop ticks in all possible ways (so both try to stop them attaching, removing any that attach and kill any that get missed).

I found a tiny little yet to attach one on dog2's ear just an hour ago.

I have horses and the current suggested worming regime is to send off samples to the lab to see what the current worm burden is if any and then making a decision based on the outcome of the test. Seems eminently sensible to me not to dose where it's unnecessary. However horses to my knowledge don't carry anything that is dangerous to humans which isn't the case with dogs and the parvovirus etc. However I'm sure there are more knowledgeable people on here who will correct me on that! I'm not a doggy person.

jon66 yep there is the same for dogs and that is what I do. It can be done without going through vets so many dog owners do not know about it.

swimmingthebluelagoon If the ticks have attached remove them with a tick remover very easy to do.

TIck remover

Most chemical treatment allows the tick to attach and kills it after 36-48 hours, I check my dogs regularly and so no attached tick would be on more dogs for more than 12 hours. We al know how easy it is to spot a tick just stroke your dog - the nicest part of the day!

As I have said before ticks do not instantly attach and bite like mosquitoes. They take a while to attach and if you can run a lint roller over your dog once a day you will get quite a few of the buggers before they attach. You must also remember that not all ticks carry disease. The tick can not pass on any disease until it is fully attached. At the moment it is thought that it has to be attached for over 24 hours to transmit lymes (some chemical treatment does not kill the tick until 48 hours) so what ever method you are using it is best to get the buggers before they attach.

Right I've been doing a lot of research on the tick issue. I wanted to find something that would help repel ticks and not just kill after they had bitten. I've found the seresto collar and it looks promising. It repels to stop them biting, plus they die from just having walked on your dog, so no biting and no biting anyone else either. They claim to have over 99% effectiveness in this. The tick species killed and repelled include the UK's most common tick (which is the type I think is biting my dogs). Off to research it further.

Swimming I used the seresto collar but still found lots of ticks attached to my dog. Maybe I was just unlucky and it will stop them biting your dog.

Seresto collar is generally v effective. It lasts ages and so is very cost effective also. It does have to be in fairly close contact with the skin so may not be suitable for a dog with a huge mane of neck hair. It doesn't suit dogs who swim or are bathed a great deal. (It is also suitable for cats and has a release bit which is designed to break if the animal gets hooked up.) Bravecto is a better long term option for frequent swimmers. Occasionally some animals get a skin reaction to the collar but that could happen with a spot-on also.
If you need to cut a bit of spare Seresto collar off, and you have a vacuum cleaner with a bag, throw the piece of collar into the vacuum bag where it will do some flea- and tick-fighting for you.
That'll be £100 for the advice cos like all vets, I am just here to tell lies for money.

Worm counts are sensible. It's been a thing in the horse world for a good few years now and done properly, it does work.

The rest? Nah.

I do know someone who uses the seresto collar and they said their dog never had a tick on them after using it. As I said we were probably just unlucky as it didn't work for mine.

There is a different standard for horses and for indoor pets though wrt parasites.
All animals differ in their natural ability to deal with parasites. Some animals appear to have minimal defences and in a herd situation, they amplify infection (ie for every worm larva they ingest, most successfully survive to become adult worms, lashing out thousands of eggs so that horse acts as a huge source of infection to his field colleagues. He may look v well. The only way to identify him and ensure that he gets the frequent treatment that he needs is via worm egg counts.)
This situation is less pronounced in non-grazing animals who are kept singly or in smaller numbers. You will have no access to your neighbour's dog's WEC.
As well as that, there are a number of parasites in dogs and cats which have the potential to affect humans, occasionally disastrously. This is why our tolerance for parasite infection in our pets is, rightly, low.

Can I just say that chemical wormers in dogs DO NOT PREVENT worms. They kill the infestation once the dog is already infected.

Regular worm count will do exactly the same. In fact they pick up the worm infestation before the wormers would kick in so that you can then treat your dog. No need to give chemicals when the dog does not have worms.

Usain the problem with the counts in dogs is that they can have an infestation without it showing in counts.

I say this as someone who did counts on my horses.

Also thanks bitey and Villan. I think it's worth a try, so am going to speak to my vet about whether they can get it for me or whether I need to get it elsewhere (with a prescription from them).

SwimmingintheBlueLagoon No you are incorrect. An infestation will show up in a worn count at the point that wormers will work.

I think there are four schools of thought.

1. Those that will not use anything mainstream from the vets and use their 'own preventative potions'.

1. Those that simply don't bother at all.

1. Those that do worm counts and only treat when an infestation (fleas or worms) when it is confirmed.

1. Those that do treatments from the vets regularly.

Once someone has decided which path they follow do people really change from one to another based on what other people say or is it more the case that people naturally gravitate to the path based on their own judgements?

Usain even the companies who do the tests agree that they only display positive result when there are adults producing eggs. A negative result does not mean you dog doesn't have worms. Wormers deal with larval stages of most worms.

Here is an example of FAQ on one of the companies the question was if you have a clear result does it mean your dog doesn't have any worms?
It means that there are no active adult worm eggs in the sample of dung that you have sent for analysis. It does not mean that your dog or cat does not have worms. The worm life cycle includes many larval stages that are not detected from faecal egg counting

Can't be arsed now but if you are interested study the life cycle of the lung worm and you will see why worm count is effective and safe if carried out regularly. If you give your dog a chemical wormer and your dog is infested the next day your chemical wormer will not kick in until your dog has worms at the larval stage.

I dont care what any of you do but do care when misinformation is plastered around by people doing a quick google search.

But the fact that worm counts can only detect adults producing eggs is stated by the companies who carry out the tests! So for them to admit this negative, it surely must be true, so to add insults to your post because I've questioned methods based on something which they themselves say as fact.

Add to that that the label of my wormer kills various larval stages, so when your worm count says clear there can still be worms that could be dealt with. Also nobody has said anything about wormers working on new infestations days later, just on the worm and larvae present when wormed.

Tbh your can't be arsed response says a lot, when it's in response to a point that is on the worm count companies websites that doesn't fit your argument.

Usainbolt, unfortunately you are completely wrong. When or if ever you Can be arsed, look up the term pre-patent period. This refers to the time during which parasite larvae are literally chewing their way through your animal's body, doing considerable damage, but are not yet mature egg-laying adults. A worm egg count done at this time may be entirely negative and will certainly not be indicative of the level of infestation. Why don't you also look up the life cycle of the whipworm? This parasite has such a long PPP that your dog could be infected for nearly three months before there is a chance of it showing up on a WEC. Tapeworm also don't tend to show up on a WEC as the parasites shed a body segment containing eggs, rather than 'free' eggs. I mention this because I too do care when misinformation is plastered around by people doing a quick google search.

villainousbroodmare can you explain how chemical wormers work?

SwimmingtheBlueLagoon* "The lungworm test we do here at Wormcount Dotcom looks for live larvae, not eggs"

Usain so one of the companies looks for tapeworm larvae as well as eggs from adults of other types of worm. As Villain has pointed out tape worm are rather different to other forms of worm. So that still means other worm species larvae are not possible to detect in a poo sample and are doing damage whilst you wait for them to grow enough inside your dog for them to produce eggs.

Villain That was exactly what I was trying to point out. Thank you. I would rather kill larvae than wait for them to have done, up to months of damage (time obviously dependent on worm species) before they show in stool samples.

The macrocyclic lactone group, which includes the most commonly used deworming drugs, causes the parasites to become paralysed by binding to glutamate-gated chloride channels in the cell membrane. Vertebrates do not have the same receptors so are unaffected.

There are about a dozen species of lungworms and in the most common ones the hatching of eggs occurs in the animal's lungs so there will never be eggs to be found in faeces. It is not that easy either to find lungworm larvae in faeces and there would have to be an index of suspicion so that the parasitologist would use a specific (Baermann) technique. I'm not sure what point you are attempting to make wrt lungworm.

There is a valid argument for looking for alternatives to routine worming of non infected dogs and I say that as a vet (who obviously gets all my income from selling chemical wormers!)

Resistance to wormers is widespread in farm animals and there is no reason why this will not happen in dogs. Also there is the environmental impact to be considered.

We already see the need for stronger flea and tick treatment than in the last few year. Frontline used to do the job and no longer works, Advantix is no longer working on ticks and some vets are also seeing failures in the Seresto collars.

Wormers are pretty sophisticated little organisms and are able to survive against all odds including wormers. We must also be aware of the spread to humans so all worming plans need to be 100% effective for everyones safety.

What is the way forward? For me herbal, alternatives are not tested and have no evidence of working.

Chemical wormers at the moment are working for some dogs, if they are used correctly but resistance is something we need to be aware of and act accordingly to prevent this.

It does need to be made clear that wormers will do nothing if the dog is not infected. he wormers act on the larvae of the worms once the dog is infected. I spend a lot of time explaining this to my clients who seem to believe that wormers will stop the dog picking up the worms.

Worm counting has been used for years and is now able to test for larvae but again does need owner compliance - many owners would not want to send off 3 days of poo samples.

Re comments by the swimmingthebluelagoon worm count testing is not left for months so there would be no damage, same really as monthly worm treatment the wormer will not be working all month on the dog just when taken.

I think there also may be a bit of confusion re tape worms.

HardworkingVet but it's not just worms for me, it's ticks and fleas as well.

I will be honest in that sending off poo samples every two months, pulling out live ticks from my dog after every single walk (and god knows how I would have done that for the ones so close to his eye) and then also having the risk of flea infestations (having moved into a house with an infestation was not fun and took money and time to solve) is never going to happen for me personally whilst I can purchase tablets to do all that for me.

I do appreciate others see it differently as I have said on this thread but no one will change my mind on moving away from using chemical treatments whilst its available and causes no ill effects to my dog.