Fleaing and worming, options?

MrsNorthman

Hi
Max is currently on the Companion Care Plan through the vets at pets at home, we pay £12 a month for his fleaing and worming, Advocat and Droncit I believe. We dont really take up any of the other offers through the plan, hes already been microchipped and neutered.

Are there any other plans out there, would it be worthwhile purchasing these things myself?

Any advice welcome and thanks for reading my post.

Merry_Wanderer

I've just signed up for something similar with my local vets, £11.45 a month for a 30kg dog - flea and worm treatments all year, vaccinations/boosters each yr, 2 free health checks a yr, 10% of all vets fees.

With my old dog we didn't do this, and we spent a similar amount of treatments .. and with this plan I get to ask the vet questions, and know things are done right. Our dogs get alot of itching from allergens in the air around here, and I like to be able to just check with the vet it's nothing else.

penny_pincha

MrsNorthman wrote: »

Hi
Max is currently on the Companion Care Plan through the vets at pets at home, we pay £12 a month for his fleaing and worming, Advocat and Droncit I believe. We don't really take up any of the other offers through the plan, hes already been microchipped and neutered.

Wow that seems expensive to me.

I buy my own Drontal and flea treatment (I use Frontline but Advocate is a good brand too) from on-line pharmacies. I understand you need a prescription for Advocate but you can ask a vet to write you one (without selling you the medication) for a small charge. That is a bit of faff I know but you could use an alternative eg Frontline, Effipro or other brands.

I see that Frontline is available from Viovet for about £3.30 each or Effipro is available from Viovet for £2.18 each.This link takes you to on-line flea treatments for cats with Viovet http://www.viovet.co.uk/advanced_search_result.php?category=120&f1=2 I have also used Vet Medic and Pet Drugs On-line pet pharmacies. All these companies are quick to dispatch, usually same day and are based in the UK so all drugs are genuine.

You can also buy Drontal from on-line pharmacies too. Drontal isn't a prescription drug.

If you use this code with Viovet [FONT=&quot]VVRMPJZYU[/FONT] you can get a discount of £3 off your first order providing you spend over £15.

Mollymoonlight

That is way too steep! Frontline and drontal for me. Merry's vet's deal is a heck of a lot more realistic.

MrsNorthman

Thanks, ill have a look at those sites, I thought it was a bit steep, more so as we dont take up any of the other offers and if im completely honest im sick of taking him to the vets, dont get me wrong its ok if I ever have any questions but its annoying doing the trip there, then waiting to be seen only to be sent on our way again after 2 minutes.

penny_pincha

MrsNorthman wrote: »

Thanks, ill have a look at those sites, I thought it was a bit steep, more so as we dont take up any of the other offers

I have just costed it up for you. As an example £2.04 per tablet for Drontal wormer (but one tablet every 3 months if your cat doesn't hunt & if less than 4kg in weight) so that is 68p per month from Viovet Then £2.18 for Effipro (or £3.30 for Frontline) so you could spend only £2.86 per month in total. Sounds better than £12 a month. You would need to buy a few months supply though so you didn't have to pay P&P charges but then you don't have the hassle & cost of having to go to the vet to get it either. Even cheaper if you use my discount code.

krlyr

It depends on the products you want to use, they're not all equal.

The really cheap OTC stuff from petshops (e.g. Bob Martins) will hold no candle to prescription-only products like Advocate. From only mildly effective (or not at all in some cases) to potentially dangerous (Bob Martins has gained a poor reputation due to the nasty side effects it can have, especially on cats), you may well just be chucking your money down the drain, so no saving at all.

Products like Advocate can only be bought in the UK with a valid prescription. This must be issued by a vet who has certified the animal as being of good enough health to be administered it. You don't have to buy these products from a vet, but vets are entitled to charge "reasonable" fees to issue a prescription for you to use elsewhere. You then have to weigh up if the prescription fee is worth the savings elsewhere - for some products it will be, for others, not.

E.g. my vet charges about £60 for a 6-pack of XL Advocate, whereas I can get it for just over £30 online. Even factoring in the newer, higher prescription price of £12 (used to be £6) I save money by getting the prescription and ordering online. My vets have admitted that they just can't compete with these, essentially, megastore pharmacies online - they have much higher overheads in a vet practice than an online shop that properly operates 95% from a warehouse, with a small team of office staff to deal with orders.

There are some stronger products on the market available without a prescription, so it's not a case of cheap & rubbish or good and expensive, but still, different products will have different pros and cons.

For example, Ivermectin and other "mectin" based products can be dangerous to use on Collies - they have a genetic issue meaning the product is absorbed into the brain and therefore a lot more toxic than the minute toxicity of a regular dose on a regular dog.

Another example is the coverage of lungworm. There are relatively few products on the market that will completely 'cure' a dog of lungworm. The thing with lungworm is that it's a parasitic infestation - you can't do a one-off vaccine, it's like fleas, they can catch them, be treated for them, and catch them 2 weeks later, so the only way to be sure you keep them away is to repeatedly treat - so, for example, giving Advocate on a monthly basis (two consecutive doses, a month apart, will completely treat lungworm but your dog could catch it 2 weeks later so you basically are treating your dog year-round)
Alternatively, you can treat on a one-off with Panacur (though this is at a half-dose for at least 7-10 days, NOT the one-off/three-day regularly worming dose) or Milbemax, though the latter only claims to "reduce" an infestation rather than cure it.

Frontlike, Drontal, etc. won't treat lungworm at all, and lungworm is an unfortunate condition in which the issue only tends to be noticed once a fair bit of damage has been done to the lungs. This damage can lead to lifetime issues, so if lungworm is a potential risk in the area, then prevention (or at least, assuming the dog is infected and treating it accordingly) is better than a cure. Lungworm can be fatal, as it obviously damages the lung but also then puts strain on the heart, affects the blood clotting capabilities, etc. so it's something to take seriously if it's found in the area.

I'm in the South East so I use Advocate monthly and then worm with Drontal (or Cestem - same active ingredients but cheaper) every 6 months, as per my vet's recommendations (Advocate treats many of the worms, though not tapeworm, hence the Drontal/Cestem). My vets issue a prescription once every 6 months (they can only issue it to the max of 12 months I think, but they can choose to only do shorter periods) for the Advocate, and the Cestem is prescription-free, and I usually find them cheapest on Animed Direct. Works out about £6 a month per dog - and that's for XL sized dogs (so needing a higher dose than many).