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Comment by NDizzle | Hacker News Reader

While this is a good list, these medications are kind of snake oily.

I've had 5 dogs in my lifetime that have lived to age 15+. All I do is take them to the vet yearly and feed them good quality dry dog food.

I have lived in rural Arkansas to the east bay California, as far as exposure to various things. I've had a half wolf dog in AR that would routinely kill and eat armadillos, opossums, terapins, and all kinds of small wildlife. He was probably exposed to all kinds of nasty things.

Never did I give him any of these dog preventative medications that seems to be so popular today.

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I've had 5 dogs in my lifetime that have lived to age 15+. All I do is take them to the vet yearly and feed them good quality dry dog food.

Anecdotal evidence should not determine whether to treat your dog (or any species) with medicine – particularly with a sample size of 5.

I have fostered multiple dogs afflicted with heartworm and it's terrible to keep an active animal still for months to prevent them from having a pulmonary embolism. It's widespread, difficult to cure, and otherwise fatal.

You don't note if your dog was an indoor dog, but on that front, some of us do not like to have fleas and ticks in our houses.

edit: also, if you have dog and cats, you really need to have your animals on heartworm prevention. Heartworms are much more dangerous to cats than dogs.

+1 - I have also fostered a dog being treated for heartworm, and it's not easy, plus dangerous to the dog. Prevention is really important.

Yeah, have to echo some of the comments here. These medications are not 'snake oily,' so I don't know if you just intended to use a different phrase. These medications are actual pharmaceuticals and some of them based on human formulations (notably, the anti-worm medications). In the third-world, parasites are the leading cause of death in humans and even in the first-world there are people that get some of these parasitic worms. It's easy to dismiss their necessity when you haven't been affected by the disorder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Edit: To clarify my personal recommendations as a dog owner, I use heartworm prevention and flea prevention as well as recommended vaccines. I don't use the other meds unless the fecal sample comes back positive for parasites; something that should be tested at a yearly vet visit.

these medicines aren't preventative, they're also used to cure existing infections. although they gave him all the serious shots, my dog still came home from the shelter with tapeworm and fleas. the grain-free organic-chicken based dog food i feed him isn't going to help with that. neither is letting him out into a field to kill some furry things (and believe me he loves to do that, he's a terrier).

also, dogs don't usually get worms and fleas from killing small animals, they get them from other dogs. just like people, if you live in the city (with dog daycare, dog parks, lots of other dogs playing on walks) it's a bigger problem than if you live in the suburbs or countryside and you have a mini-pack of your own dogs on your home property.

also, nobody ever said fleas or worms will kill your dog, it just makes life absolutely miserable for both the dog and the owner.

My experience is different. My dogs (in southern CA) have been miserable in summer when they get fleas. Compulsive licking and scratching, sudden motions at all times of the day or night when they are trying to get to a crawling bug, etc.

Give him/her some Advantage, and that all goes away in a day or two. Amazing difference.

And I've had three cats in my life all of which have never been outside. They all still have managed to get fleas multiple times. (The fleas come in the house on your clothes and stuff)

The other thing is I'm not sure you know what snake oil is... all these medicines have real science behind them.

You misunderstand both the meaning of the word "snake oil" as well as the concept of science.

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