How Often Should I Use Advocate For Dogs?
Advocate is a topical (‘spot on’) treatment that effectively prevents and treats numerous parasitic infestations, such as fleas, biting lice, ear mites, lungworms, and heartworm. Administered via pipettes directly onto the skin at the back of the neck area, Advocate provides relief against several forms of parasite infestations.
It contains imidacloprid and moxidectin as active ingredients, and should be administered according to your veterinarian’s advice on frequency and duration for your pet’s needs.
Fleas
Fleas are tiny wingless insects commonly found on mammals and birds, sporting piercing mouthparts with spines projecting back from their bodies. Fleas are excellent jumpers; reaching up to seven inches vertically and thirteen inches horizontally during jumps. Unfortunately, flea infestation can cause severe itching in pets that is known as flea allergy dermatitis.
Adult fleas feed on blood drawn from pet’s skin and excrete it as small pellets known as flea dirt. Flea bites are painful for your pets and could potentially lead to secondary infections, tapeworms or anemia in extreme cases.
Advocate contains two ingredients – imidacloprid and moxidectin – which work together to effectively break the flea lifecycle. Chemicals in this treatment absorb directly into animal’s coat and skin, killing fleas on contact; additionally they act to interrupt receptors within external parasite’s nervous systems causing paralysis or death of external parasites; plus these active ingredients are absorbed by soil and water and kill any dormant flea eggs and larvae which might exist within your home or yard!
Lungworm
Lungworm (Angiostrongylus vasorum) is a serious canine health issue, killing thousands across the UK every year and leading to symptoms ranging from diarrheal diarrhoea to heart failure. Simply enter your postcode into this lungworm map to gain insight into its prevalence in your area.
Only way to be certain whether your dog has lungworm is to send a sample of his or her poo to a lab for egg counting (Baermann test). Advocate will treat A. vasorum but cannot prevent further infections from other parasites.
Your best defense against lungworm infestation for your pet is keeping their water bowls clean, regularly cutting grass to remove larvae and discouraging eating puddles or entering rabbit hutches where A. vasorum might reside – these hotspots for lungworm. A monthly year-round treatment with Advocate can also protect them from lungworm infection while killing fleas and some types of tapeworm.
Ear Mites
Scaly or crusty buildup in your pet’s ears could be indicative of an ear mite infestation. Your vet will prescribe topical medication to rid these parasites, which are highly contagious.
Ear mites are tiny parasites that spread quickly between dogs, cats and ferrets through close physical contact such as walks and boarding facilities.
Once inside an ear canal, mites lay eggs that eat away at wax and skin oils in the form of waxy deposits and skin oils. After approximately one week, these hatch into protonymphs, which then molt into deutonymphs before mating with male adults.
Keep your pet up-to-date on regular preventative applications to help combat ear mites. Your veterinarian can prescribe topical treatments that target mites directly as well as any eggs they might leave behind, plus possibly cortisone derivatives to ease itching or thiabendazole to kill yeasts – this should alleviate itching while giving time for full removal of all mites via an ear cytology examination. A single course should relieve itching; subsequent testing should confirm this result.
Heartworm
Advocate protects your pet against various external and internal parasitic infections, such as fleas, lungworm, ear mites and heartworm (though adult heartworm cannot be reversed by treatment with Advocate). Administered through pipettes monthly for maximum effectiveness against parasitic infections even in animals that have previously received other antiparasitic medication.
Advocate’s key ingredients are imidacloprid and moxidectin, two pet-safe insecticides designed to attack parasite infestation. Imidacloprid acts by interrupting nerve signals between parasite cells to kill them; Moxidectin works similarly killing internal parasites like hookworms or whipworms.
Treatment is typically administered to pets on their back of neck; however, for gastrointestinal parasites it can also be given orally through their mouth orally. Side effects from treatment typically are mild and don’t typically require medical attention; however excessive drooling and vomiting have been reported on occasion.
