Yes, there is a vaccine for Lyme disease. Fleas and ticks will not resolve on their own. They will just get worse.

We recommend a product called Sentinel, which every time a flea lays 30 to 50 eggs a day, those eggs never hatch out. That's essential for environmental control. If you come to us and you already have an infestation of fleas or ticks, what we're going to recommend is that you do a lot of vacuuming. You do not need to spray and bomb your house or spray your yard because very few adults are part of the problem. In the pupal stage, nothing kills it except fire, so I tell people not to bother with using poisons in the environment. Let them just hatch out, as there is a product that your dog or your cat is treated with so that, as they jump and hatch out and they get on your dog, they're going to die. Then again, using both that with a combination of a preventative product will get the problem under control very quickly.

In San Diego, we need flea protection year around. We have fleas here all the time because it never freezes. It may depend on where you live, but for the most part, year-round prevention is the best way to go.

At the Drake center, what we're going to do is find out more about your dog’s lifestyle, how many pets are in the household, and whether you have an active case or not to determine whether or not we're going to use both a preventative and an actual adulticide. The treatment depends on what medications we're going to choose for your pets.

Yes, and, unfortunately, some parasites can cause blindness in children. They can also cause skin problems. We take parasites very seriously. Although they're entirely preventable and treatable, we do not ever want children to be exposed to intestinal parasites.