This is an important topic-
My son nearly died from 5 late-stage tick-borne illnesses in 2015. He was 16 and bedridden with physical and cognitive impairment, fever, fatigue, and debilitating panic attacks. Just an FYI he never had joint pain or any classic lyme symptoms and all his preliminary tests came back negative. He had babeisiosis, bartonella, erlichia, anaplasmosis, and borrelia bergdorferi (classic lyme). (He is fine now, after 2 years of treatment, and he is a third year engineering student in college
)
We have 3 dogs. I have always sprayed my yard and used the collars and shampoos without much luck. We now use Simparica- a once a month tablet that has an ingredient to kill ticks before they even bite the dog but the agent is benign for dogs to ingest. Kind of like the vitamin K effect to rodents is not harmful to other animals. I worked in a veterinary hospital years ago and went to school for animal veterinary science the first time around, so I am always trying to learn about and investigate the new treatments.
Simparica has worked so well that we have literally not seen a tick in our home or on our dogs in over 3 years. Maybe one dead one on the floor. A drastic change from the hundreds of ticks each spring and fall on our dogs. I cannot recommend it enough. I works on our terrier and our great dane to the same degree of success. It is prescription only, but I get the handwritten script from the vet then order it from chewy.com for half the price.
Worth every single penny...
Kerilynn