I've always treated mine every month with stronghold and every 3 months for worms. Because I belonged to the pet health club with the vet at £34 a month but I no longer think it's right to keep bombarding them with chemicals so I have cancelled the pet health club. I'm just going to treat for fleas when needed and worm I don't know yet! So what's everyone else's regime?

Never give flea treatment unless I see them, never seen them so don't do it.

Wormer, every 6 months

SJ, ditto. Mind you mine is a short coat breed so it is much easier to see any problems.

Same here as well.

Never done any flea regime, as mine dont get fleas(very short coated so extreamly easy to see). The last time I saw 1 flea on one of mine was right back in 2005 after judging where there was a dog at the show infested with them!!!

Worming every 3 months as per the recommendation on packets. I have noticed on here and some others say they only do every 6 months, so mayhave been tempted to leave longer gaps but havnt had the nerve yet.

I don't treat for fleas unless I see one, but I worm every 2 or 3 months because I don't know what the filth they scavenge when we're out walking is infecting them with!

I also don't treat for fleas unless I see one or notice lots of scratching, mine are double coated.
I have a cat so need to be extra vigilant, I find a garlic pearl with every meal is helpful.

Worming I do every 3 months as mine are fond of a bit of poo eating and I have to cover them for what other owners may not!!

I live in a high risk Lung worm area so I Advocate monthly, kills fleas too ...

I'm always wary of any anti parasitic things that I stick into my dogs because of MRD1.

I don't de-flea as she doesn't have them, and I worm 6 monthly.

I am not too happy putting chemicals on her if she doesn't need them, and I always think that it's in the interest of the manufacturers to have you buying their product more frequently.
However, the dog sitter she is going to in February asks for them to be flea treated so that is fair enough.

I don't normally flea treat unless I see them, however we have a static van on the Suffolk coast surrounded by heathland with a high red deer population, so ticks aplenty. Rather then dose her monthly with Frontline which I don't think is as effective as it used to be, I paid what seemed like a fortune for a Seresto collar which lasts eight months which should see us through. So far no ticks attached to her although have picked off walking ones.

As for worming depends on the age and nature of the dog. Currently have a young dog who snacks on anything horrid that she finds, but particularly poo, so every 3 months, but with some of my much older dogs who don't have such unsavoury habits, I've left it until 6 months. This pup has had reactions to wormers, either sickness or diarrhoea or both, but have finally nailed one she is fine taking (Milbamax)

Thank you some interesting answers I think I will worm every six months as mine seem to enjoy the rabbit droppings on our walks. When I was young my mum only ever done puppy vacs and no boosters never ever fleaed and only done worming every six months but vets seem to encourage fleaing monthly and worming every three months now.

Ah but no lung worm back then...it's a killer down here and I've heard of several cases recently.

Worming advice has been 3-4 monthly for as long as I can remember (at least since the 60's ;-) )

The reason being that even the day you have wormed your dog, he/she can become infested later in the day.  The routine is to prevent a dangerous worm load building up.

Of course, you might prefer to have worm counts done from the stool samples, which may give some idea of the need for worming and the frequency :-)

If you have small dogs, I would have thought worming more regularly would be wise, since the worms multiply just as quickly as in a large dog, but with less space in the intestines it could become a problem more quickly.  

This is one of the reasons pups are wormed more frequently than adults :-)

I don't routinely do this.    I'd treat fleas if I saw them, for sure.   And ditto with worms, but then before worming, I'd get a fecal test done so I know what I'm treating first and whether it's needed.   These treatments involve using chemicals which I prefer not to use, unless needed.    My puppies however, were wormed every 2 weeks from 2 weeks of age (at which time mum was wormed again too - she'd been wormed prior to mating) to the time they went home. 

>Worming advice has been 3-4 monthly for as long as I can remember (at least since the 60's ;-) )
>The reason being that even the day you have wormed your dog, he/she can become infested later in the day.  The routine is to prevent a dangerous worm load building up.

Exactly. Worming is a treatment, not a preventative. You kill the woms one day and the dog can infect itself again the next, and will then be shedding worm eggs itself after about 6 weeks.

I have a very long, double coated breed but in the 12 years that I have owned this breed, I have never used a flea treatment and they have never needed it. I also don't routinely worm, the last time I wormed any of my dogs conventionally must have been around 20 years ago. I have had the odd faecal worm count done but it has always been clear.

I give garlic routinely with their raw food and I use very high quality Diatomacious earth both internally and occasionally externally. I remove ticks when I see them, we live in a very rural area but have only dealt with 2 ticks in the last few years.

I refuse to bombard my dogs with harmful chemicals unless absolutely necessary. I am vigilant and all of my dogs have lived and do live long, healthy lives.

So it sounds like I'd be best to carry on worming every three months then. Thank you for the advice.

> we live in a very rural area but have only dealt with 2 ticks in the last few years.

It seems to depend on how often, and with what, your grassland is treated.  We live in an area where the grass is 'improved' for grazing or haylage - my dogs never get ticks here.  However my mum has acres of unimproved grassland on Dartmoor and last week end both dogs were covered in ticks after just an hour running in the bottom field.  Luckily I got most before they had properly attached but I found one tick inside an ear and another two right next to an eye.  I think I picked off around 20 in total and only missed 2 which I found when I got home.

For those of you that live in tick areas a spray with garlic juice can really help.  I had forgotten to take mine but won't make that mistake again :)

> I'm always wary of any anti parasitic things that I stick into my dogs because of MRD1.

There is a reasonably priced test for MDR1 now - £32
http://www.animalgenetics.eu/Canine/Canine-disease/canine-MDR1-Multi-drug-Resistance.html

It also depends on your dogs.  One of my dogs likes to munch dead rabbits, yuck.  She gets wormed monthly.  The other one doesn't munch dead rabbits, so gets wormed every 3 months.  The other one is a baby pup, so is wormed every couple of weeks at the moment. 

Fleas, I don't treat for unless I see them.

Three pugs aged 8/7/5 two like to eat rabbit poo but not dead animals so would three months be ok. Or should I be worming more often.

There is another option, which is to send off some poop to Wormcount monthly and see if you need to worm: 
http://www.wormcount.com