How to prevent fleas/tick Naturally

I am a small in home holistic English golden retriever breeder that raises my dogs as natural as possible. Once I switched our lifestyle over and what we put on our body, I did the same for our dogs. Preventing cancer is a huge passion of mine. So we are very cautious about what we put on our pets. I am going to share some tips of how I see medicine, when I see it necessary and prevention vs treatment, also a few recipes!

First lets talk about prevention. Preventing means to keep something from happening. So a month before flea/tick season we use an herbal mix that I make, buying all my herbs in bulk and mixing them together in equal parts. This works amazing. I would say more so with fleas, but fleas are always my biggest concern. I do still find a couple ticks on them here and there but it definitely reduces the amount and we live by fields of tall grass and it is a high tick populated area. One thing I have not tried yet but plan to in the future is using this herbal remedy directly in their hair. I usually use this as a topper for their food but you can do both or one or the other.

How to prevent fleas on your dogs!

• Herbal mix consisting of these powder form ingredients below

• Keep your grass SHORT! Ticks enjoy the tall grass and when our grass is long we see more ticks.

• Plant rosemary, lavender, citronella, and peppermint around your property.

• Use DE (food grade diatomaceous earth) around your property line (reapply after it rains)

• Use a topical spray involving dog safe essential oils in a mix (recipe below)

• Vacuum your carpets at least every 3 days

• Beneficial Nematodes (these are microscopic worms that eat insect larvae and pupae)

• Wash your dog with Dr. Bronner or Dr. Woods Castille soap with lavender eo, eucalyptus, or peppermint. (You can either add your own eo's or buy one that already contains them) This actually kills fleas also, just make sure to let it sit on them for about 5 minutes.

Our Herbal mix recipe:

*Hemp Seed

*Brewers Yeast

*Spirulina

*Garlic

*Neem

*Red yeast

*Quassia wood

We use equal parts, add daily to their food as a topper. We store it in a plastic container or glass jar. We currently use 1tsp a day beginning one month prior to flea/tick season. (Our dogs are 50-75lbs so adjust as you need for your size dog)

Pregnancy safe Herbal mix: (equal parts)

*Hemp seed

*Brewers Yeast

*Spirulina

*Garlic

Our Natural Flea & Tick Spray recipe:

(Always use 100% pure essential oils and a trusted 3rd party brands)

Recipe:

*Neem oil

*Himalayan Pink salt

*Grapeseed oil

*Sesame oil

*Apple cider vinegar

*Distilled water

*Eucalyptus eo

*Lavender eo

*Lemongrass eo

*Peppermint eo

*Citronella eo

*Cedarwood eo

*Rosemary eo

I use a 16oz glass amber spray bottle. Do about 50/50 distilled water & acv, about 2 tbl spoons of each oil, approximately 20 drops of each essential oil, tsp of salt, shake well. Spray on a small part of the dog to see if their is any type of reaction before spraying all over the dog. Start away from the face. Use every 3 days or as needed. *You can choose just 3-5 of these essential oils if you wish. You don't have to use all of the eo's listed.

A topical herb remedy found in "Natural Pet Cures" by Dr. John Heinerman is:

*Eucalyptus

*Fennel

*Fleabane

*Garlic

*Onion

*Rosemary

*Rue (controversial ingredient)

*Tansy (controversial ingredient)

*Wormwood

Use equal parts of each herb. Dust pets 3-4 times a week with this mix, store in a glass jar away from sunlight. Backward comb, by running your fingers through your pets coat the opposite direction of its growth.

Citrus Spray recipe found in the book "Natural Pet Cures" by Dr. Heinerman:

*Thinly slice an unpeeled lemon and lime, add one pint of boiling water over the peels, cover, and let it steep overnight.

*Strain into a spray bottle and add 15 drops of fennel, garlic, lavender, rosemary, sage, or sandalwood liquid extract then spray it on your pet.

Another remedy is eat a raw crushed clove of garlic a day. I like to shove our garlic in a banana. Works very nicely!

Fresh Spray Recipe:

*1 organic lemon

*2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

*1 sprig of garden sage (Salvia officinalis)

*1 quart of filtered water

*1 sprig of lavender

Thinly slice up the lemon, put the lemon, sage, and rosemary in a large glass or stainless steel pot. Take a quart of boiling water and add it to the mixture and place a cover on it and let it sit. The next day strain the liquid and funnel it into a glass spray bottle. Refrigerate remainder for 1-2 weeks or until it begins to smell rancid.

You can also try an already made spray like Wondercide:

Lets talk about treatment. I strongly believe that topical and ingestible flea medication is TOXIC to animals. However, fleas/ticks can also be life threatening to your pet. So IF you do end up with fleas and can not get rid of them, I would advise to use a flea medication at that time. This would be treating for something that is present. Not treating the dog for something they don't have to hopefully prevent something from occurring later. The problem with treating the dog for something they don't have in hopes of preventing something is you are putting toxins inside the dogs body consistently, weakening their immune system, making their organs work overtime, increasing their risk of neurological issues, destroying their gut health, increasing the risk of cancer, liver disease, allergies, and more! Only use medication when it is necessary, not to prevent something that may or may not happen to your dog. Even though your dog may seem fine now, or you gave it to your other dogs and they were all fine. Does not mean long term you didn't shorten the dogs life, or change the longterm outcome of your dogs health. It also does not mean that just because one dog is okay, that they will all be okay. Medication just like antibiotics, vaccines, etc will affect every dog differently because each dog has its own genetic makeup. But please remember to detox your dog, support their liver with milk thistle, and a good probiotic to help protect their gut health.

Once the fleas are GONE, then STOP the medication. You will likely only need it 1-2 months TOPS out of the year IF you get fleas. Ticks can easily be prevented using the other methods.

Daily tick checks should be done on your dog. IF you find a tick latched to your dog. Grab a pair of tweezers and grab as close to the skin as possible grabbing the head and slowly pull it out. Then clean the area thoroughly with colloidal silver. Save the tick in a bag in the freezer and mark the date and location the tick was found on the dog. Just in case your dog experiences symptoms later down the road, and you need to send the tick off for testing. Do not smother the tick with anything or try to burn it. This will cause the tick to regurgitate back into the dog and that puts the dog at risk of a tick borne illness.