We have a dog along with up to 4 cats who spend a good part of their days inside and nights in our bedroom! As we are in a rural area that has gone through a long drought, fleas and ticks have been bad; now with rains, we have a huge mozzie problem. Even the chickens have been suffering from fleas on their combs! We use Frontline Plus on all our cats and dogs 12 months of the year due to our mild winters. There will be a greasy looking spot for a couple of days but that is well worth the protection they receive. As we don't have a credit card [and don't want one thank you!], we buy online from healthypets.com who are far cheaper than any local vet office or companies such as Tractor Supply that now sells it. There is a shipping charge but if you order over $100 worth, it's free. The difference between the US and imported Frontline is the US marketed packaged do not have an expiry date. If you have any query re the product, you can call the manufacturer at their 1-800 number. Sprinkle a borox product such as Twenty Mule Team on your carpets to kill flea lavea etc. As for heartworm product, we use one from our vets which is only available by prescription. They are now only selling Interceptor. As it is a prescription product, any purchase from online sources would require them to telephone your vet for a prescription. If you import it, you could find it being confiscated upon arrival by Customs! Do NOT stop heartworm preventative treatment during the winter months. Irrespective of your climate, it needs to be given 12 months of the year. Be aware that animals still can contract tapeworm. We buy Droncit for the cats via healthypets though Tractor Supply are now stocking it at a competitive price - in both cases far cheaper for the same product than we can buy from any vet; the dog tabs we obtain via the vet at this stage but will be switching over to online buying in the near future. Be careful with one particular brand of tapeworm treatment in dogs - read the label carefully as the one I looked at in a store today, but cannot remember the name of, requires no-food for approx 12 hrs before and X number of hours after the drug being administered; also can cause vomiting and diarohea. There's safer alternatives!

4 months, snow melt, and tilling would resolve my main concerns and mixing in a good amount of quality compost would resolve any remaining concerns. You could always wait another year before planing root crops there if you wanted to be extra safe. Dave PS: Sorry for your loss as I know it can be difficult but she would be glad to see you put the area to a use she would love to be digging in. ;)

sorry to hear you have had this diagnosis. i lost my corgi girl to nasal cancer a few years ago. because i was getting nowhere fast with the vets around here as far as diagnosing the cause of her nose bleeds, i asked for and got a referral to the university of illinois vet school. i took maggie for a ct scan/biopsy and that is when it was diagnosed. by then it had become quite invasive. the vets told me to expect to lose her in another 1-2 weeks. exactly one week later, i woke to her struggling to breathe so i opted to send her over the bridge that morning. it broke my heart as she was my late husband's dog and i had only recently lost him. oddest of things, my husband's kidney cancer had metastisized to his sinuses and he suffered terrible nose bleeds throughout his illness. the day i came home and was greeted by maggie at the door with a bloody nose, i couldn't believe it. sorta deja vu all over again. *sigh* i hope you can keep your pup comfortable for a long time. like you, i was floored when i got this diagnosis. at the time maggie was diagnosed with cancer, my little male corgi was in the late stages of degenerative myelopathy. i lost him 5 months later.

I know three people that don't care for dogs (or pets for that matter) and everyone of them is such a nice person. I just want to yell, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR MISSING !!!! Ahh, but I don't. That Gin is one smart dog. Very impressive.