FAQs International

Is the efficacy of Advocate affected by water?

Exposure to water, as may occur with swimming or rainfall, beginning as soon as 60 minutes after treatment does not reduce the effectiveness of Advocate in the prevention of heartworm disease. Previous studies with advantage have shown that swimming or bathing with a mild grooming shampoo does not significantly reduce the effectiveness of imidacloprid against fleas.

Is Advocate safe for use on pregnant and lactating dogs and cats?

Imidacloprid and moxidectin, the active ingredients in Advocate, have been extensively studied individually and both ingredients have been shown to be non-carcinogenic, non-mutagenic and non-teratogenic (not causing birth defects). Both active ingredients have individually shown no problems with use during pregnancy. Reproductive safety studies with Advocate have not been completed at this time.

Can I use Advocate for cats on an 8kg dog?

Advocate for dogs contains a different level of the active ingredient moxidectin than the level contained in the product for cats. The concentration of moxidectin for both is based on efficacy and drug behavior in each respective species. It is important to use the specific cat or dog product to ensure the product’s effectiveness in the target species.

What size of Advocate do I use on a cat over 8 kg of body weight?

Cats over 8 kg should be treated with the appropriate combination of Advocate tubes for the extra weight.

What size of Advocate do I use on a dog over 45kg?

Dogs over 45 kg should be treated with the appropriate combination of Advocate tubes.

Can I shampoo my dog after application?

Shampooing or bathing 90 minutes after treatment does not reduce the effectiveness of Advocate in the prevention of heartworm disease. Previous studies with Advantage have shown that swimming or bathing with a mild grooming shampoo does not significantly reduce the effectiveness of imidacloprid against fleas. Use of keratolytic or degreasing shampoos may affect the residual activity of topical parasiticide products for ectoparasites such as fleas.

How does Advocate fit into our strategic deworming program?

Advocate provides excellent treatment and control of roundworms and hookworms in both dogs and cats and complements a year round strategic deworming program. Prevention of heartworm in some geographic regions is seasonal and year round control could be achieved with the broad-spectrum treatment of roundworms, hookworms, whipworms (dogs only) and tapeworms with the Drontal family of products.

Please provide clarification of the worming policy which should be adopted in practice when using Advocate and Drontal.

There is no restriction using Advocate and Droncit, Droncit-spot on for cats, Drontal, Drontal Plus together, this has been tested during the multicentred field study for the Advocate registration. However while there is a broad spectrum nematicidal efficacy of Advocate a regular treatment against cestodes using either one of the products is required.

When is the best time to apply Advocate?

For prevention of heartworm disease, Advocate administration should start one month before the first expected exposure to mosquitoes and should continue at monthly intervals until one month after the last exposure to mosquitoes. In heartworm endemic areas, year-round prevention is advisable.

Do we have to heartworm test dogs before application?

Advocate may be safely administered to heartworm infected dogs. However, it is recommended, in accordance with good veterinary practices, that all dogs 6 months of age or over should be tested for patent heartworm infections before beginning prophylactic medication for the first time. Dogs that are heartworm positive should be treated appropriately.

Can you use advantix and Advocate concurrently?

To control both fleas and ticks on dogs and to prevent dogs from sand fly bites while travelling to endemic areas the use of Advocate and advantix is necessary. Our advice is to treat dogs with Advocate first, to allow the transdermal absorption of the moxidectin. This treatment could be done for example in the clinic to show correct spot-on application to the dog owner. advantix can be use on the following day after Advocate application.

Is it safe to use Advocate with other products?

Advocate should not be used concurrently with other macrocyclic lactone products (e.g. selamectin, milbemycin). As both Stronghold (selamectin) and Milbemax (milbemycin oxime) contain macrocyclic lactones and are licensed to prevent heartworm with a single monthly treatment, we would suggest that a 30 day interval be given between treatments of any of these products.

Can you use Advocate and amidine products such as amitraz at the same time?

It should not be necessary to use these two products at the same time.

Regarding the use of Advocate and amidines (amitraz) for therapy of demodicosis, one should consider the following: If an animal has been receiving amitraz treatments for demodicosis, one should not switch to Advocate earlier than the recommended treatment intervals between amitraz application, thus 9 – 10 days.

Why should we be using a broad spectrum product when the animal may only have fleas- why treat for everything else?

With the Bayer HealthCare range of parasiticides you can choose narrow or wide spectrum e.g. Droncit for tapeworms, Drontal, Drontal Plus as broad spectrum anthelmintic, advantix for fleas and tick. You may wish to use Advocate for fleas where monthly worming is beneficial. Or one can combine Advocate with Advantage for flea control and deworming on a year-round base. Thus one may e.g. start treatment using Advocate followed by two monthly applications of Advantage and then another Advocate treatment. Thus achieving roundworm and flea control.

What happens if a pet grooms another animal, or itself, following Advocate application? What are possible side effects?

If applied as directed to cats and smaller dog’s accidental oral ingestion will be difficult to achieve. In larger dogs where more than one application site is used, it is potentially the case that the dog could lick at the sites further down the back. However as discussed below this is not necessarily a serious problem. It should only take an hour or so for the product to be absorbed but it may be prudent, especially with collie-type dogs, to keep them separate for approximately 12 hours (e.g. over night) as a precaution.

Oral single dose studies with Advocate in adult cats and dogs demonstrated that oral administration of the recommended dermal dose only caused transient and mild side effects, as vomiting and salivation in cats and vomiting and anorexia in some dogs. Serious side effects were not encountered. If a kitten were to ingest a large quantity of Advocate (5x dose), this could be potentially harmful.

Oral ingestion is only a serious problem in ivermectin sensitive Collie-type dogs.The oral safety in other dog breeds and cats is considerably better, although lower than the dermal safety. The signs described on the data sheet (transient neurological signs such as ataxia, generalised tremors, ocular signs (dilated pupils, little pupillary reflex, nystagmus), abnormal respiration, salivation and vomiting) are transient and occur infrequently.

How long does moxidectin kill stages of nematodes from the time of dosing to monthly repeat?

Advocate will start to work before optimal plasma concentrations are achieved and will continue to work afterwards. This means that Advocate will be effective for a large part of the treatment period (e.g. up to 30 days).

Due to the nature of the studies carried out we do not have a ‘speed of kill’ study for nematodes. However, from the larval stage study for T. canis we know that Advocate is working well by day 8.

What about Advocate and exotic animals?

Extensive safety studies have been conducted on dogs and cats to ensure the safety of Advocate where indicated. Safety studies have not been completed in small mammals. There have been a number of case reports available from the field, where Advocate has been used successfully on rabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets and rodents. Treatment espescially against mite infections and GI nematodes was effective and no side effects were recorded. In general, veterinarians dealing with these animals and exotic parasite infections are advised to first specify the parasite they wish to treat against. Some of these parasites may require higher dosages and/or longer treatment intervals. For Advocate we advice to dose exotic mammals according to body weight using either the small cat or small dog pipette. Birds are not to be treated using Advocate due to the imidacloprid.