I wasn't too happy about Frontline either and asked our vet about Program. Unfortunately the practice I go to aren't keen on it. Apparently they'd used it on rabbits and didn't think it was very good. Anyway I discovered its possible to buy on line without a prescription but I can't remember the site
I know someone at work who's married to a vet and she uses Program on their own collies because he's not too happy about with Frontline. Like everything else it all depends on who you talk to. Dale and Chip have both had Program several times now with no problems and its much easier to give a pill than trying to reach the skin through their thick coats.

It's also much easier to empty a stomach if something goes wrong than having to try to get it off their skin!

I have heard (don't know where, perhaps on here0 that BC's are more susceptible to side effects because of one of the ingredients of the spot on???

The only reason I used Frontline was to help with ticks but they still attach and hang on long enough to do harm so I don't see much advantage. By now I'm really good at getting them off
The vet suggested I didn't use anything for fleas he says they very rarely see dogs with them. Not sure about that As I understand it Program doesn't do anything to the dog, just hangs about in their system and if a flea bites stops it being able to reproduce. So you could have an occasional flea on the dog for a day or two.

I use Frontline but I don't use it in the strengths they advise. I use just a few drips of the pipette on each dog (as they are only tiny). None of mine have had a bad reaction to it at all.

I only have one question guys...
Why is it that you can get Frontline without prescription but you can't get Frontline Combo without prescription - they have the same ingredients and are from the same manufactorer...

Anyway I used frontline on my dog and he never showed any side affects. I used the regular (just for fleas and ticks) one. I did try advantix once but it really wasn't any different from frontline. I found that frontline really did repel ticks (mine had a lot of ticks before using it, and when I started using it there were only ocasionally ticks on him - and my dog was a mud puppy, was in water practically every day), at least on my dog...
If you don't have many ticks in your area than yes, maybe you shouldn't use chemical treatments, but were we lived there were a lot of ticks and alot were infected with ehrlichia and babeosis so I did not want to take a chance.

My friend's Labrador had a reaction to Frontline, it burned his skin. I would think that's uncommon though, but I personally don't use anything as a regular preventative treatment. If mine get fleas I will treat them, but so far we haven't had any. My cats used to always get fleas until I switched them to healthy options dry food and nature's menu. No fleas since the switch. Maybe some petfoods make them more tasty to parasites?

Good point, we dn't have a lot of ticks round here. I've never even seen one!

A friend forntlined her dog before going to a tick infested area on holiday...dog got huge tick, wouldn't die...re treated her dog (wouodn't have been my choice) didn't die...pured a pipette of frontline on tick...eventually died...doesn't always work on ticks...

When we got our first pup a year ago we were keen to protect her from everything. We took her to see our vet the day we got her and when asked aobut flea prevention were told "no point in pumping chemicals into her if she doesn't need them - she hasn't got fleas".

We weren't too impressed by this at the time, but went along with it. Our dog is out and about all over the country mixing with loads of dogs and running free in all sorts of countryside. She's not had fleas yet. The second pup is only 15 weeks old and also not treated for fleas.

We have some Johnsons flea killing tablets on hand and would give them one if we saw any sign of fleas. I've been told that these are the safest simply because Johsons do the most testing - don't know if it's true.

I have been giving them garlic fairly regularly, but it's impossible to tell whether it's this that's keeping them flea free. My gut feeling is that they're just not catching fleas because there are none about. And to be fair this is probably because most people are using flea prevention treatment on their dogs!

frontline combo contains S-methoprene in addition to fipronil hence the classification