Ticks are on the move... from the backwoods to your backyard. With more ticks in more places, it's newsworthy that Merial, the makers of FRONTLINE®, introduced CERTIFECT™ in mid-July at AVMA 2011 in St. Louis.

For those of you who have not yet heard, CERTIFECT™ is a new addition to the FRONTLINE® family of products. It combines the proven flea- and tick-killing action of FRONTLINE® Plus with a small amount of amitraz to potentiate the tick-killing power of fipronil (FRONTLINE®'s tick-killing active ingredient). The result is that after treatment CERTIFECT™ causes existing ticks to detach and starts rapidly killing ticks within 6 hours. CERTIFECT™ provides rapid and sustained protection for the entire monthly application period against new ticks that get on the dog.

The data presented by Merial at AVMA and AAVP are impressive. Studies showed that CERTIFECT™ killed over 90% of deer ticks (which may transmit Lyme disease and anaplasmosis to dogs) within 6 hours and killed 100% of these ticks within 18 hours at the end of the monthly application period. Studies also showed that CERTIFECT™ retained a high level of tick-killing activity even when dogs were bathed or submersed in water. "Rapid killing of ticks is important, because the sooner you kill a tick the less likely it is to transmit an infection" said Dr. Tom Mather, Director of the University of Rhode Island's TickEncounter Resource Center. "Killing ticks rapidly also can help protect you from ticks carried into living areas by your dog" he added.