Travelling to South Europe/viajar al sur de Europa.

Scouser dog ready to travel

During the summer most owners leave their pets in kennels or catteries. However, there are other who take them abroad with them, mainly to Portugal, Spain, France, Italy or Greece. 

It is compulsory to have your dog vaccinated against rabies at least 21 days before travelling the first time your pet is shot, and a vet health check with a treatment against tapeworm from 5 to 10 days before.

Needless to say that their wormer weather is nice, but mosquitoes, ticks and other host for parasites also think so. This is why, although it is not compulsory to have them treated against fleas and ticks any more, I strongly recommend to use some product that repels ticks as well as mosquitoes.

There is a much higher risk of heartworm disease in these countries, as well as other exotic diseases such as erhlichiosis or leismanosis. Only in Spain, there are areas where 35% of dogs are infected with leishmania.

The ideal product should be one that not only kills fleas and ticks, their larvae and eggs, but also repels them, and repels mosquitoes. Products that don´t repel ticks, for instance, will not prevent them from biting your pet. In fact, the product needs the tick to bite it to be able to kill the tick. The application of the product (collar, tablet or pipette) may be important in those pets with sensitive skin, allergy reaction or simply don't like collars.

Here is a summary of the main products used in the UK.

Products like seresto, promeris duo or exspot are not licensed to be used as mosquito repelent. However, their ingredients have been used as repelents successfully. 

Advantix, very recently obtained its licence after being used for years as only flea and tick treatment.

Scalibor is still the product most sold in Spain to prevent leishmania, although customers should know that the efficacy to prevent mosquito bites is about 3 months, opposite to its 6 months efficacy against flea infection.