LESLIE: Lubbock, Texas finds The Money Pit on KFYO. And Cathy’s on the line. How can we help you?
CATHY: Yes, I have a dog in my backyard; fairly large backyard. It has a cyclone fence around and I have – my neighbors have pets on both sides of me.
TOM: OK.
CATHY: My dog has ticks and fleas. It doesn’t seem that theirs do. And I’ve tried everything from putting down the ground treatment to the Sevin dust – everything that I can think of – and they won’t go away.
TOM: What about the dog? Is the dog being treated? I mean do you use Frontline on the dog or something …
CATHY: I’ve used the ointment on his neck ….
TOM: Right, the Frontline.
CATHY: … that’s supposed to be for the skin.
TOM: Right.
CATHY: I’ve dusted him in Sevin dust. I’ve …
TOM: Oh, no. I don’t think you’re supposed to do that.
LESLIE: (chuckling) You know what you can also do is you can also actually get a vaccine from your vet. We actually did that for our dog because we have ticks in our area as well. And it’s two shots over a one-month period and that keeps them lyme disease-free. It doesn’t stop the ticks from going on them, but it prevents them from getting sick from the ticks themselves. And so, ask your vet about that.
But what you can also do is keep your yard really clean. Make sure you rake any leaves or small brush …
CATHY: Right.
LESLIE: … because they like to burrow into those areas. So keep that area nice and clean. If you have a pile of wood, make sure it’s neat and dry. Make sure you clean your gardens every fall. You can make sure that your lawns are mowed short and keep the edges trimmed. And keep the ground around any bird feeders – you know, to limit the availability of rodent food because rodents will bring ticks to an area as well. So if you’ve got bird feeders, keep them clean and make sure you keep that area, as well, nice and tidy.
You can also spray garlic juice – I know it sounds crazy. You won’t notice the smell after a few minutes, but garlic fields have no ticks and have no fleas. So if you can spray garlic juice around the yard, that will also help tremendously.
CATHY: Have you heard about sulfur? Putting sulfur in the yard?
LESLIE: I’ve heard sulfur as well. And it’s – the reason why garlic works is because garlic has sulfur in it.
CATHY: Oh, OK. OK.
OK, and my second question – red ants.
TOM: Well, the pesticides that are used to control ants have changed a lot. The best ones, now, are what’s known as undetectables. And this class of insecticides, the ants don’t know it’s there so they sort of march through it and they get it on their bodies and then they bring it back to the nest and they pass it to each of the other ants in the nest and that’s how you get rid of them. One of the good ones is called Termidor – T-e-r-m-i-d-o-r. You can get more information at TermidorHome.com. And that’s a product that is professionally applied and works very, very well at controlling ant populations around the house.
Leave a Reply