Dear friends, I had so many things I wanted to tell you about this month but my reading schedule simply fell apart towards the end of last month because I am in SO much inner turmoil and desolation...

Guess what happened to me? I am now officially a SPURNED WOMAN. Yes! It is true! One of my favorite Nurses in the whole wide world, Kelly, has left me! She claims that it is because she needed to go on maternity leave, and she says she will come back and visit me sometimes, and that we can still be friends. But isn't that what they all say? I cry into my little paws every day....my eyes are red....and no one else here at the clinic fixes those wonderful-smelling things that Kelly used to fix for lunch every day. Everyone else tells me that I will get over this, and that I will find a new Nurse, but I MISS MY KELLY and I can't even think straight!!!!

So I cheated this month, and I looked to see what my Mom was writing about in her newsletter, and I decided to do a quick riff off her topic, which was heartworm disease and why it's time to test right now. I think she made a big mistake by not telling you what we recommend you use for heartworm and flea and tick control, so I will do that. I sat down and I read all the brochures and leaflets that all the companies that sell those products are always leaving for our Doctors, and I also eavesdropped on a meeting between our two Doctors when they were discussing what products are best to use. Here's the scoop:

Our Doctor’s first pick for heartworm preventative, according to what I heard while I was snooping, remains Heartgard. I like the chewable form myself, but my dog friends with food allergies are better off with the unflavored form. Both forms provide effective prevention of heartworm disease as well as control of intestinal parasites. (Our staff use Heartgard for their own pets, too). Remember, you need a full nine months of heartworm preventative. This means that if your owner decides to pick up a 6-pack instead of a 12-pack of preventative now, you’ll run out in September and they will need to return for more.

What about fleas?

If fleas are an issue as well as heartworms, the best choice for safety and cost-effectiveness is Heartgard combined with Frontline. The Frontline is added every 2 months during the summer months, when fleas can be a problem. This avoids using unnecessary medication the rest of the year. Sentinel, a monthly preventative pill, is another option for heartworm and flea control. However, it is more costly, doesn’t kill adult fleas as Frontline does, and its use means that you are paying for flea control even during the months when fleas aren’t active.

I love to take my dog running in the forest preserve…do I need to worry about ticks?

Ticks love forest edge habitat and tall grass habitat. So if you are like me and you love to run around in the woods, in grassy meadows, along a bike path, or just in a yard with a lot of tall landscaping plants to rootle around in, you have the potential to get ticks. For tick control, I think that Frontline can’t be beat –it kills all ticks when used monthly during tick season. Another choice for ticks is Revolution, but it does not kill deer ticks, which can carry Lymes disease. So Mom doesn't like that one as much.

What about the "heartworm shot"?

It has been pulled from the market, due to its many severe side effects, including very bad muscle pain, destruction of muscle tissue in the area where the shot was given, and death. (I myself have seen some dogs that got the shot somewhere else come in to see us with big "divots" of muscle missing from their backs!). My mom says that she recognized, as soon as this product hit the market, that it was not a safe choice for our clients. That is why we never recommended it or used it at our hospital.

Are nosodes and "natural" heartworm preventatives an option?

I myself am a huge fan of natural products whenever possible, but both Mom and I think that such products need to be held to the same standards for safety and efficacy as any other product. There are still NO makers of these products that have done any sort of controlled testing to determine whether their products actually work. Until such testing is done, we cannot recommend their use.