Can Any Oral Medication Prevent Ticks, Fleas, and Heartworm
Do you know of any oral treatments that will cover fleas, heartworm, and ticks? I would really like to get away from the topical application, but we also live in an area with a heavy dear population, so I feel like tick protection is important.
Thank you,
Mandi
Lago Vista, TX
Sadly, I am not aware of any oral medications that effectively prevent ticks in dogs.
Sentinel is a medicine that prevents heartworm, certain intestinal worms, and breeding flea infestations in dogs and cats. It does not kill individual fleas, and it does not prevent ticks.
Comfortis is a new monthly oral flea preventative for dogs only. It does not offer protection against heartworm or ticks. Capstar is a daily (or every other day) oral flea preventative for dogs and cats. It also does not protect against ticks or heartworm.
If you want truly effective tick prevention, at this time you’ll be stuck using a topical treatment such as Frontline Plus, Vectra 3D, or K9 Advantix. Homeopathic oral tick preventatives are not effective in my experience.
One note: you mention that you are worried about ticks because of deer in your area. I presume that means you’re worried about Lyme disease, which is spread by deer ticks. Note that deer populations do not harbor Lyme disease, and the number of deer in your area won’t necessarily correlate with the prevalence of Lyme disease. The reservoir for Lyme disease is a type of wild mouse.
You have questions. 
I use Bug Off Garlic from Springtime with great results. I disliked the idea of not only putting pesticies on my dogs, but also of having my dogs then be handled by my family( and not to mention then rolling around on my carpets. ) I really try hard to take the natural approach and garlic is known as a natural flea and tick repellent. Springtime is a company that carries horse, dog and people products.
I use Frontline Plus on my dogs, it does NOT get rid of ticks. I constantly continue to find them on my dogs. And I switched them to K9 Advantix and it did work for about a week and a half. Not exactly a month long. I switched them back to frontline plus.
too much garlic can be poisonous to dogs
Yes, too much garlic is not a good thing. However, this product is safely formulated for dogs by Springtime. Check them out on the web. My dogs don’t get fleas and the only tick I’ve ever found on them was on an eyelash. Wish I could say the same for myself. We live in the woods in Southern Chester County PA, a highly infested area.
I give my dog Comfortis once a month. Last month I pulled 7 ticks off him and out of the 7 six were dead. When I went to get more from my vet and mentioned that he said Comfortis will kill some ticks. Frontline didn’t even kill fleas on my dog.
Recently we switched to using sentinel because we didn’t want a topical anymore. We were told that it works great but we are very dissapointed with it. I gave it to my 2 dogs at the begininning of this month and they have already had ticks on them twice. I’m thinking of switching back to Fronline plus or K9 Advantix.