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What is important to know about flea and tick products

Posted By Nancy Houser on October 1, 2009

As more and more natural and commercial pet products become available in the care of our pets, the line-up for natural products increases. This is due to the wider choices becoming available and potentially dangerous side effects of things like amitraz in the Preventic collars for flea and tick control portrayed through the media. So what is important to know about flea and tick products?

Commercial Preventive Products Over Natural Products

Natural animal products are much safer for our pets.

Many people choose the commercial products first when their animals are being bombarded with ticks or fleas and they need results fast. Unfortunately, a wide majority of these products can be dangerous and provide less relief than originally thought. This has caused more people to purchase natural products that many pet owners find to be slower acting, causing them to be used more as a preventive care for pets than one for fast results.

The pet care industry has become a huge industry for pet owners, with over $1 billion dollars spent on flea and tick products alone this year. This has totaled to a $21 billion dollar pet industry with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) providing the industry’s product review for only the past ten years—newly focusing on the pet products, their ingredients and safety.

Approximately 900 pesticides have been registered with the EPA, formulated into over 20,000 products (data from the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides). Of these,60% are herbicides, 90% are fungicides, and 30% of the insecticides are known to be carcinogenic—all contaminating our pets, our groundwater, our air and the food eaten by us, our children, and animals.

Studies by the EPA on Commercial Flea and Tick Products

Pesticides have been proven to be harmful to both people and animals.

Recent findings on some of the more popular flea and tick commercial products are showing extreme hazard to pets, with some containing a type of noxious nerve gas. Because of dangers like this being found by the EPA, many pet owners are seriously looking for clinical proven safe products which have highly effective solutions.

Studies done by the EPA on children to look at pesticides were done in 20004 because of their extreme vulnerability to the products:

That kids are so vulnerable to pesticide exposure is precisely why the EPA chose them to study, and back in October 2004, they were given $2.1 million to do just that. Who were the granters of this large sum? The American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry front group with such big wigs as Monsanto, Exxon and Dow.

The two-year study-called the Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS)-would monitor infants in low-income families to determine how chemicals can be ingested, inhaled or absorbed by babies to children up to age 3, as well as the health effects they would cause. (SixWise.com)

Safety of Natural Products for Pets

Natural formulas for flea and tick preventives include many safe products, as compared to the commercial products. Natural products are available in natural surroundings, natural health stores or the Internet, and they may include things like garlic, lavender oil, geranium oil, citronella, dandelion, red clover, dried chry7santhemum, and burdock root.

Pet owners have found that “experts” say garlic is toxic. Anything has the ability to be toxic when overly-consumed or prepared wrong, and garlic is no exception. Garlic for pets should be the dosage of UP TO “1 Tablespoon of garlic per 10 pounds of dog weight.” Anything over this amount is toxic to the animal, but when given correctly in a dog’s food will repel fleas and ticks as it gets into their bloodstream.

Dr. Messonnier (who practices veterinary medicine in Scottsdale, Arizona) also provides the recipe for an herbal tick repellant that he obtained from well known herbalists, Greg and Mary Tilford. In their book, “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Herbs for Pets ” (see below) they offer the following recipe:

Mix 300 millileters of olive or almond oil, 500 millileters of essential oil of terebith, 100 millileters of St. John’s wort infused oil, and 100 milliliters of essential oil of lavender. The oil can be massaged on affected areas to aid in tick removal, can be massaged on areas of the pet most likely to come into contact with ticks, or brushed onto the dog’s coat prior to tick exposure.