With the onset of warmer weather brings the joys of outdoor activities! Hiking, camping long walks, and the joy of getting outdoors. But what else it brings may not be so pleasant. That would be the increased encounters with Ticks and Fleas. If you enjoy the outdoors like most people do, it is pretty tough not to think about your own health and the health of your pets! Everyone has heard the stories, I went for one short walk, never even thought about it….and now visits to the docs office… So that should bring up the discussion of how do we minimize our chances? There are basically 3 different methods of control. Types of clothing, chemical treatment and going with a natural defense. I tend to lean towards a more natural prevention, and our friends over at moonlightdogcafe.com have 5  good, fast and easy methods of prevention.

Image courtesy of: No Barriers USA

1. Keep your pet healthy as fleas are attracted first to unhealthy animals. This includes feeding a high quality bio-available preferably raw pet food and exercising your pet.

   • B vitamins are important for a healthy nervous system and raw meat is one natural source. Vitamin B are water-soluble and generally your pet can easily obtain these from raw meats, organs, fish and vegetables.

2.  Use flea and tick herbal repellents that are topical or as collars that can be worn by both dogs and cats. These contain geranium oil in a proprietary blend that at worst may cause a skin reaction.

3. Talk to your holistic vet about adding fresh ground/chopped/minced garlic to your dog’s food. Garlic is a powerful antibiotic, antioxidant, anti-viral, anti-fungal and the list goes on. The concern about garlic poisoning is due to the thiosulphate in it, which is lower than what is in onions. (Read here about what we’ve written about the study on garlic)

   • Cats, however, are more sensitive to thiosulphate than dogs. Please talk to your holistic vet about dosing right if you want to do this at all for your dog.
   • At the right dose, garlic is beneficial to your dog. We’d recommend grating fresh garlic and letting it sit for about 10 min before feeding as it forms an enzyme called allicin, which is great for repelling pests and active for about an hour before becoming unstable. In addition, allicin is also shown to inhibit cancer formation.

4. Do not over-vaccinate your pets. More pet vaccines are not better. For more information see Dr Shultz (expert in vaccinations recommendations)

5. Lastly, to ensure your pets do not have heartworm or any tick diseases, ask your vet for SNAP 4Dx tests annually to check for these diseases.

Photo By No Barriers USA