My dog seems to be a tick magnet. I have seen several herbal tick repellents advertised and was wondering if anyone who has used them would recommend them?
Thanks

I hate, HATE using chemicals on my dogs, but unfortunately when it comes to ticks, I haven't found an effective alternative.
I know people who say "I have used XYZ for a million years and never seen a tick" but I suspect that they are not in ticky areas and probably wouldn't have seen one anyway.
We havent had any yet, but as soon as we start getting them, they get treated with Vectr3D (as much as I hate it).

Bravecto has some good ratings for ticks, but I have heard too many bad things about the potential side effects to risk it. I know all chemical treatments can have nasty side effects, but you have to do your own research and decide which risks you are willing to take.

Thanks for such a quick response. I also prefer not to use chemicals if I don’t have to, but we do usually end up getting treatment from the vets because he seems to pick up so many. I am not sure if it is because he has long hair – the other dogs we walk with never seem to get them.

I think I've tried just about every herbal/natural tick remedy out there, and I've also tried frontline etc but my lot still pick up ticks. The only thing that reliably works for us is bravecto. It definitely depends on your dogs coat type, mine have silky coats that must be easy for the ticks to climb on, my nieces short coated lurcher goes on all the same walks and rarely has a tick, and doesn't get any preventatives.

I find bravecto lasts a lot longer than the advertised 3 months, last year it was still working 7 months later. It's worn off now and I've just given them a dose again, hopefully that will do all summer. My dogs are all between 10 and 20kg, so I buy the 20 - 40kg tablets and half them, it works out a lot cheaper that way.

I've been using it for several years now and not seen any side effects, so for me it's much better than the daily tick search.

I agree with Gundogs and chaumsong.  I too hate HATE using anything, but on the dogs which are really prone to them (longer hair) I haven't found anything natural that works.

STILL - every year, I try the natural products, I won't give up on them   I've been giving Billy No Mates herbs for about 2 months now to my hairy beast - it takes a while to build up in the dog's system and perhaps I just haven't started it early enough on previous years.  I also spray with Wondercide, which is a natural product - you can google it. 

When I get to May/June and I can't hack finding and removing them any longer (usually I find one engorged one which has dropped off inside the house and freak out) then the last 3 years I've been giving Bravecto.  I only need to give one tablet in about May and it sees us right through the tick season till next year so I see this as quite minimal.

I hate to do this, and I've read the research on it and the horror stories - but any collar or spot-on affects not only the dog concerned, but everyone else in the house and I'm just so reluctant to expose us all to pesticides.  If I did use anything else, it would be the Scalibor collar.  That's what I use when we go abroad.  So far, my dog has been fine on Bravecto.  She is only just into the 'biggest' dog category (the box with the GSD on the front!), so this year (if natural products fail again) I am experimentally giving her the next size down - (the box with the springer on the front!) to try to at least reduce the dosage and see if that is as effective as the higher dose.  It's something I can do, at least, if I can reduce the dose.

Oh well, it was only the faintest glimmer of hope I had that the herbal remedies might work. I had to remove two little blighters from him yesterday, so reluctantly I think we will need a more ‘chemically’ based treatment. I will look into the ones suggested (previously we have been given a spot-on treatment by the vets and I really don’t like using these for the same reason as you give 1234). Thank you for taking the time to reply.

Ive been using a Seresto collar for the last few years which seems to work well. It is a chemical type one on prescription and lasts up to 8 months which is most of the bad tick season. There are some woodland nearby where we often walk our tick magnet and she is picking up ticks now, I found one on me a few weeks ago. Eek.
I used a more natural collar during the this winter as it was so mild and I thought ticks might well be still active. They were. The collar was impregnated with citrine type stuff, smelled lemoney, and I think worked ok until she lost it. It wasn’t as well made as the Seresto collar and seemed to become loose quite easily, the material seems more slippy. However there weren’t that many ticks about so I don’t know really how well it worked as a product.

>I found one on me a few weeks ago.

That just sent a shiver down my spine!

Just to say we bought a Seresto collar some years ago now, but had to remove it as it made my Basset really sore under his chin.   We use Beaphar collars as and when needed - but for fleas as so far we've not had ticks.   These collars are supposed to be good for both fleas and ticks however.

> We use Beaphar collars

I've tried them, they didn't do a thing for ours, I had to remove 12 ticks one weekend (from 4 dogs) while they were wearing the collars, all ticks still alive and crawling round the dish when removed, before their nice hot (boiling!) bath

> so far we've not had tick

I'm not surprised, the close short coat of your whippet and basset are good tick repellents, I walk most days with a saluki/greyhound lurcher and a whippet, neither ever gets ticks while the silkens (and previously my collies when alive) are covered in them.

> <br />I'm not surprised, the close short coat of your whippet and basset are good tick repellents,

Oh we have had ticks on our Bassets in the past.   Just not in recent years.   My comment was a bit misleading - sorry.