Anyone have experience eraticating brown dog ticks?

My dog (german shepherd) has been using "Vectra" (e.g., flea & tick treatment you apply down the back of the dog). However, he has brown dog ticks.
Our vet recommends Vectra over Frontline (says Frontline is not as effective in our area). Obviously, Vectra doesn't work. My vet sold us a super power tick collar that should keep them off. However, I don't want to keep using collars.
The house doesn't have ticks; We are treating anyway. I assume he picked them up around the neigborhood or in the yard, which I zapped with Bayer Advance.

Anyone know anything about Frontline or why Vectra doesn't work? Any suggestions on zapping ticks?

Are you applying correctly? What is the dogs bathing/swimming schedule?

What is in Bauer advanced?

My dog doesn't go swimming; bath about every 2 months or so - we don't have a regular schedule (now, we are bathing him with a flea and tick shampoo which works).

We resisted giving the dog a bath after treating him last month with Vectra because we didn't want to wash it off. However, the Vectra wasn't getting it done.

My wife said she was a week late with the monthly Vectra application, so maybe that contributed to the cause. But it has been 3 or 4 weeks, and we are still finding ticks on him. Hence, the need to get a tick collar.

Bayer Advance is the pestacide I am applying to my lawn and shrubs. It is actually called Bayer Advanced Complete Insect Killer.

Any recommendations re. a more effective pestacide to use around he lawn and exterior woud be helpful. I am concerned that the Bayer product only kills ticks on contact and does not have any residual effect on the lawn.

We bomb the yard quarterly with a dose of triazicide/spectracide. This seems to take care of most of our tick problems. We've only had to have a pro come out and des with ticks once. If you still have them after a good solid spectracide hit, I'd call a pro.

Enjoy the ride for the next month. We recently discovered the *&^# ticks. Once they are IN your house, it will take several weeks to get rid of them.

Dog
Change up the flea & tick meds. There is one that comes in the orange box from the vets. Its supposed to be extra strong against ticks.

Bathing - Every couple of days. Wash lather scrub - HARD! Repeat. Ensure to get between the toes & in all crevices. Brush brush brush with a fine comb if you can. Feel your pup up EVERY time they come in from outside.

Pest Control
Every 2 weeks for 8 weeks to ensure the are dead. They multiple quickly and last forever.
Tell them to spray inside & outside. Bomb the house as a precaution.

Inside the home
Wash ALL curtains, bed sheets & bed skirts, blankets,
Remove seat cushions, wash the covers (if you can).
Everything in HOT water

Vaccum. Vaccum. Vaccum.

Don't do what burnet said, re: bathing... If you apply a topical flea/tick treatment and wash with flea and tick shampoo, right after application you strip the oils off The skin and hair which have the medicine/ pesticide in them. Also no vet, ive ever met would reccomend bathing every 5 days. Everything else seems spot on, don't know about the orange box though.

Bath with Adams flea and tick shampoo, let dog sit with suds on body for about 5-10 mins, rinse off. Let dry completely, then apply topical in appropriate areas, depending on size of dog I usually do about half the tube at the shoulders and half just infront of the hips (where they can't lick). Yard and house treatment is a good idea, I need to know the chemical pesticide in the bayer stuff to know of it is appropriate for this application.

I have never heard of vectra, but if it comes from your vet then it's prolly good stuff. Advantage MULTI and frontline are both good imo as well. If the dog has any bedding inside or out that needs to be cleaned( washed) on a sanitize setting of possible, if not then hot/hot will work.

Be sure to check for ticks regularly that get attached, they can sometimes case localized or systemic infections.

The other thing to look into is the tick collars, ugly yes and kinda stinky but they WORK. Vet might have them, or know which kind is best, I forget at the moment... But pretty sure virbac makes them.

I just read a little about vectra, I personally wouldn't use it as it is basically just heavy duty nsect repellent ( permethrin). It also does not get absorbed into the skin so bathing strips it off the body.

Talk to bet about switching to frontline plus. Fipronil.(active drug) does have some resistancy but should give you better results than what you're seeing.

[This message has been edited by Onlyfornow (edited 9/23/2012 7:51a).]

[This message has been edited by Onlyfornow (edited 9/23/2012 7:57a).]

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All I can say if you have a hatching in your house is god help you. I would get pest control to start spraying growth regulators in your house now.

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Even if they're not hatching in your house but you have found an engorged tick that's separated from the dog, you should have the whole house sprayed.

We monitor our dogs (A good scruff rub after you call them in and they come running is good training!) and started finding sand ticks last year sometime (We were incorrect in thinking that the chewable once a month wormer/flea treatment they were on was a tick preventative as well, so they weren't on Advantix) ... had ABC Pest come out and spray after we found one in a dog bed that was literally the largest tick I'd ever seen.

ABC came out and sprayed the entire house, paying special attention to places where the dogs lay. They moved furniture and disassembled our sectional couch for us. We didn't have any problems with ticks after that, but we did start applying Advantix to the dogs.

Thanks for the responses. Update: We did get a prescription collar (Virbac) from our vet and the dog has been tic free since. We washed all bedding and put tick powder down under his crate/bedding. My wife keeps the place vacuumed/clean like she has OCD. No sign of any ticks since.
We are going to keep the collar until it 'expires' in a couple of months and request the vet to switch us back to Frontline Plus. In summary, I wouldn't recommend Vectra.
I continue to regularly treat the yard as well, but question how effective the Bayer Advance and Ortho Bug B Gone pestacides work.

Preventic collars work well.

Advantage Multi has no real effect on ticks.

When treating the yard it is not like spraying for fleas. Spray shrubs up to chest high, ticks climb. Tops & bottoms of leaves.

Spray decks and the crevices where they join the house and board meets board.

Frontline Plus may help some but is not a solution by itself. Frontline TriTak is a new product, may work better.

Get a pyrethrin spray (Adams is good) and spray directly on any ticks you see on pets, they will die.

check yourself & kids for ticks each night, they can carry some crappy diseases.