Typically, we start vaccinating puppies of eight weeks of age. And if you get a new dog from a shelter, then sometimes they have vaccines, but sometimes they don't have all the vaccines that we would typically recommend. So we ask you to, at the very least send us your vaccine record so we can tell you whether your dog is up to date, but you should be bringing them in to see us when you first get them anyway. You’ll want to do this so we can make sure that they're healthy and we can always review their vaccines and see if there are any additional ones that we recommend for our area.

If you want to treat intestinal parasites, do things like making sure that you pick up the feces in your dog's yard so that if they did have a parasite that they don't reinfest themselves. Make sure that they don't get into other dogs’ feces, particularly at a dog park. As far as fleas and ticks, you want to use your preventives, but you want to keep your dog nicely groomed, and check on him a lot. Ensure that even when you have your preventatives, you look at them from time to time and make sure that they don't have any parasites on them. One way to avoid ticks is not going in the areas where tall grass is because that's where the ticks are. You want to be careful that you just avoid those areas whenever ticks are out, which in Maryland is usually during the spring, the summer, the fall, and early winter, so almost all of the months of the year in Maryland.

You can. OTC products are probably safe, but we're not sure they're very effective. The medications that we use here—predominantly Interceptor, Credelio, and Bravecto—are medications that have had an extreme amount of research and safety studies and gone through the process of going through the FDA to ensure they are effective. That's the products that I would use.

If it's intestinal parasites, there's going to be a medication that we give orally that will kill that roundworm, hookworm, whipworm, or tapeworm. Most of those have to be repeated in two to three weeks to break the life cycle so that we don't just get it again from the same source. There is a heartworm preventative. Heartworm preventive is a medication you take once a month to prevent them from getting heartworms when they get bitten by a mosquito. There is a treatment for heartworm disease. It's a serious medication that we have to use. The dogs feel terrible. It's a whole long protocol that takes several months to do. So you just want to prevent it. You don't want to go down the road of having to treat for heartworm disease, but it is available if you need to.

They're never going to go away on their own. Fleas are just going to bite you and your dog. They're going to replicate. They're going to lay eggs. They're going to lay eggs on the dogs and in the environment. They're going to continue to replicate in your home. Ticks may die off and eventually fall off in the environment, but then they're ready to get on another person. Do not rely on the weather or anything else to get rid of them. You're going to need to get some help.