Well, it looks like tick season is upon us. With the past few weeks of warm weather and now moisture, it seems as though a lot of people are starting to find ticks on their pets and/ or themselves. There is a large selection of flea and tick preventatives available. As with any chemical, if you are applying it or feeding it to your pet for the first time, do it when you will be home and around to make sure your pet does not have an adverse reaction. As with any person, pets have unique sensitivities. If you are going to be traveling, it is wise to apply or feed the medication a few days before leaving. One reason is to watch for any reactions and second, you want the medication to be fully working when you start to travel. Make sure you keep the packaging handy just in case your pet does experience a reaction. It will help if poison control is needed and ideally you can contact the company to report the reaction.
Cats are NOT small dogs, so please do not use a product labeled for dogs on a cat. Cats metabolize things differently than dogs in many cases and often are very sensitive to pyrethrin/ pyrethroid based products. There are also natural remedies available, but again, make sure it is safe for a cat. Garlic products should be avoided completely in cats. Essential oils can also be of concern. Cats with their habit of self grooming as well as grooming of other pets in the household can result in ingestion of chemicals that are tolerated topically but not when taken internally.
In my opinion, probably the safest method of tick protection is daily tick checks if your pet goes outside.Ticks tend to reside where there is dense grass, brush or is a heavily wooded area with a lot of wildlife present. Long or thick coated animals present a challenge for finding small ticks, so this is where the topical or oral treatments are helpful. Ticks often go to the head or armpit area, but I have seen dogs literally covered head to toe with ticks. With that in mind, always check the whole dog or cat.
As for diseases that ticks can carry, the CDC has a nice app called CDC Tickborne Diseases that can be downloaded onto your cellphone. It has 3 sections. Tick identification, human diseases, and tick bites/ prevention for categories. While some of the information is more oriented to people, the majority of it is useful for people as well as animals.
Enjoy the outdoors, but be safe. Don't let a tick borne disease ruin your health or the the health of your pet!