Tics have been a big problem this year it seems-depending on where you are in the world. I have learned some pretty cool stuff over the last month in trying to combat it. I have so many animals, it's critical to have this under control in my household. I have been doing a few things--one of which, I am not entirely on board with but, I believe it is working and may be the lesser of evils---goat formula (as in the dried powder of the mothers milk of goats, which, is fortified with....brewers yeast, yikes, a big no no in  my book. But, I noticed that my goats were literally never getting tics while my dogs were geting many. So of course the next logical thought was what were the goats doing that the dogs weren't. Well, they are babies-I am feeding them goat formula. So as I compared the goat formula ingredients to the kinds of natural things that dogs are being given to help ward off tics, the common ingredient was brewers yeast. YIKES! I am NOT a fan of brewers yeast. BUT, I felt desperate as I am not a fan of tics either. So, I started giving my dogs some of the goat formula every day. Immediately, I noticed about a 90% improveement-incredible. Because I was so worried about this and me missing one and them coming into my home, I did everything so I muddied the variables somewhat and added in tow more things--one pretty cool-some would say crazy. One is a tag--a dog tag of sorts that is said to sync with the biochemistry of the animal wearing it and then send signals to make the animal unattractive to tics and the other an essential oil collar. I purchased these at onlynaturalpet.com a very cool site for natural pet products. Since I have been doing this, I have only found a couple of tics on the dogs if they go into an area of ivy infested with them. I otherwise have not found any! I need to close by saying again, I am not a fan of using yeast at all-ever for my patients, but the reason I was open to it in my animals is because I have an animal right now I am working on that has huge problems and one of the ingredients that has been helping him is a product with brewers yeast in it-he also, along with the goats has not had one tic. So, I am considering the possibility that while it may not be something I ever consider in my patients, it may just prove to be useful for these things in pets. I wanted to share these insights as I thought they were important.

Dr.M