My dog only walks outside. Does she still need flea & tick meds?

Nexgard is an excellent product that provide tick protection in addition to flea prevention. Bravecto is a similar product, but it provides coverage against fleas and ticks for 3 months. All of these medications require a prescription. I would recommend discussing them with your vet to determine the best fit for Charlie.

Hello and thank you for reaching out to Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Yes, there are lots of other non-topical flea and tick prevention options. Nexgard and Bravecto have oral chews that dogs can eat as treats. Nexgard is monthly whereas Bravecto is every 3 months. Both of these prevent against fleas and ticks. Heartgard is an oral medication that protects against heartworm and other intestinal parasites. There is a Seresto collar that can be worm by dogs to prevent flea and tick infections for up to 8 months. I recommend reaching out to your local vet to see which products they have available. I hope this is helpful!

You can use a Preventic collar, a Seresto collar, or a topical medication such as Frontline or K9 Advantix along with Comfortis for tick coverage. Or, if you prefer to stick with oral medications, you can switch from Comfortis to Nexgard or Bravecto - both of these cover both fleas and ticks, and are also very effective.

It is generally not recommended to use two oral products together. It's not to say it's impossible but many of these companies have not done the testing to know if there are interactions. You may discuss this with your regular vet to see if they have any experience with this. Most topical flea and tick products are expected to be safe to use with Trifexis. There is also a collar called a Preventic which is fine to use with oral products. Most people only put the collar on the pet when it is going out to tick areas and they remove it when the pet is not in those areas. Another option is to ask your vet if they would exchange the product for something like Simparica and Interceptor which would get all your parasite concerns. Some clients will also switch products when ticks are in season or when exposure is expected and then switch back once the exposure time is over. I hope this is helpful and please feel free to post any additional questions.

It is dependent on where you live - in some apartment buildings or yards there are many fleas in the environment, and a flea can easily get inside and cause an infestation. Dogs can also bring fleas indoors, even when they are on preventatives, so if you have any other pets that go outside I would definitely start a preventative for Jackson. Otherwise you can talk to your vet about starting a preventative now or monitoring for symptoms of fleas.

Great question! Nexgard kills the deer tick as well as fleas and American dog tick/rocky mountain tick, and lone star tick. It is an oral pill as well, so I would us that for your dogs. Because Nexgard doesn't protect again heartworms, you will have to give your dogs Heartgard as well, which is available by prescription only from the vet. Advantix is a spot on treatment that treats the same things as Nexgard, but you would also have to use Heartgard as well for the heartworms. These two medications (Nexgard and Advantix) are for dogs only. As for the cats, Simparica prevents five types of ticks, so this may work for your cats :-)

I do not recommend any flea or tick shampoos, these are usually not safe products and not as long lasting as more modern preventive treatment for fleas and ticks. here is the list of the best flea products on the market. Spot ons: Revoulution Advantage Advantage Multi Frontline (ticks as well) Tablets: Trifexis/comfortis Bravecto (ticks as well) - for dogs Collar: Seresto ( (ticks as well) House spary: Indoorex