Ask Dr. Watts - Dr. Michael Watts, Vet Care, clevengerscorner.com
Published: April 26, 2009
Q: What is the best flea control product to use on my pets?
A: The answer to this question depends on several lifestyle and risk factors. For example, the best product for a dog that likes to swim may be different than the best product for a house cat. The answer may also depend on other parasites you are concerned about. For example, some flea products also protect against ticks, heartworm, mites, or intestinal parasites.
Your family veterinarian is the best person to formulate the ideal flea control program for your pet. Veterinary-quality flea control offers the best possible safety for your pet and efficacy against fleas. There are many brands and types of veterinary-quality flea control. Here is a summary of the most popular monthly spot-on products:
-Advantage – quickly kills adult fleas with some activity against flea larva
-Advantage-Multi – same as Advantage with added medication to prevent heartworm and some intestinal parasites
-Frontline – kills adult fleas, ticks, and lice
-Frontline Plus – same as Frontline with an added flea “birth control” that interferes with the fleas’ reproductive ability
-K9 Advantix – same as Advantage with added medication to kill and repel ticks and mosquitoes; extremely toxic to cats
-Promeris – dog product kills fleas, ticks, and some mites; cat product not labeled for ticks
-Revolution – similar to Advantage-Multi with added benefit of killing some ticks and mites; my favorite product for most cats
There are also several oral medications your veterinarian may recommend to help prevent or control flea infestations. They include:
-Capstar – a daily tablet that quickly kills fleas after they bite
-Comfortis – similar to Capstar, but administered monthly
-Program – a flea “birth control” given as a monthly pill in dogs or a six month injection in cats; prevents fleas from reproducing, but does not kill them
-Sentinel – Program pill combined with heartworm and intestinal worm prevention
Q: Why should I purchase my pets medication from my veterinarian?
A: As pet owners spend increasingly larger amounts caring for their companions, many corporations are seeing profit potential in pet medications. There are several good reasons pet owners should continuing purchasing from their local veterinarian.
First, and most importantly, the proceeds from a sale at your local veterinarian go directly to improving the quality of care for your pet. Dollars spent in the office pay for salaries for the caring staff you know by name, updates in medical equipment used to cure sick pets and continuing education to keep your veterinary healthcare team current. When you purchase from a corporation, your money leaves the local economy and only leads to more shareholder dividends.
Secondly, you can have confidence in the quality and storage conditions of the medications you purchase from your veterinarian. The FDA, EPA, and many state pharmacy boards report complaints about counterfeit medications, ineffective products, and improperly labeled drugs coming from mail-order companies. Many manufacturers are even invalidating guarantees on medications that are not purchased through a veterinarian. You can trust that your veterinarian goes to great lengths to ensure the safety and effectiveness of every medication she supplies.
Finally, purchasing medications through your family veterinarian helps to keep other medical costs down. In human medicine and in veterinary referral hospitals, doctors do not sell medications directly to patients. As a result, all the costs of running a medical facility are charged to patients through high service fees. An examination may cost $200. Surgery easily runs into thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.
In contrast, your family veterinarian’s service fees are substantially subsidized by medication sales. If a significant percentage of pet owners choose to purchase medications through other sources, family veterinarians will be forced to significantly raise service fees to pay for the operation of their offices. By saving a few dollars with mail-order medicine, owners may ultimately find it significantly more expensive the next time their pets become ill or injured.
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