The cheapest vet visit is the one that never happens.

Yes, in all of our markets. Fleas survive the winter indoors, ticks become active on any day above freezing, and heartworm prevention works retroactively — each dose clears the larvae your pet picked up over the previous month, so a skipped month leaves a real gap. Year-round dosing also means one habit instead of a seasonal start-and-stop you have to remember.

There isn't a single best one — there's a best one for your pet. For dogs, a combination product like Simparica Trio or NexGard Plus covers fleas, ticks, heartworm and common intestinal worms in one monthly chew, which is why it's a frequent starting point. For cats, Revolution Plus and Bravecto Plus are the common choices, both topical. Weight, age, health history, other pets in the home and your local tick pressure all move the answer, which is why it's a prescription conversation rather than a shelf pick.

Lower risk isn't no risk. Fleas arrive on shoes, on clothing and on other pets; mosquitoes come through door and window screens. The heartworm point is the decisive one — there is no approved treatment for heartworm disease in cats, so if an indoor cat is infected, there's nothing to fall back on. Most vets, including ours, recommend prevention for indoor cats for exactly that reason.

No. Heartworm preventives are prescription-only in the US, and a prescription requires a current vet-client-patient relationship plus a recent negative heartworm test. That test isn't bureaucratic: giving a preventive to a dog that already has adult heartworms can trigger a dangerous reaction. If you're already a Sploot client and just need a refill, you usually don't need a new appointment — order through SplootRx and your vet approves it directly.

Two reasons. Safety: preventives kill larvae, not adult worms, and using one in an already-infected dog can cause a serious reaction. And detection: heartworm disease is silent early on, so an annual test is the only way to catch it while it's still straightforward to treat. The test is a small blood sample and we run it in-house.

It depends on your pet's weight and which parasites the product needs to cover — a monthly preventive commonly lands somewhere in the $6–18 range. Current pricing for each product is on SplootRx, and SplootPack members take 10% off. For scale: treating heartworm disease typically runs $1,000–$5,000, which is the comparison that matters most.

Prescription preventives have a strong safety record when they're matched to the right pet at the right dose. Mild, short-lived effects can happen — some digestive upset, or irritation at the application site with topicals. Contact us if you see persistent vomiting, lethargy, incoordination or any reaction that doesn't settle within a day. Tell your vet about every medication and supplement your pet takes, and about any seizure history, since that can affect product choice.

Give it as soon as you remember, then resume the normal schedule. If more than a few weeks have lapsed on heartworm prevention, call us — depending on how long the gap was, we may want to re-test before restarting, since prevention doesn't clear an established infection.

No, and this one is genuinely dangerous. Several common canine flea and tick products contain permethrin, which is toxic to cats — exposure can be fatal, including from a cat grooming a recently treated dog. Never split a dose, never substitute between species, and if you have both, keep them separated until a topical has fully dried.

Order through SplootRx: choose your clinic, place the refill, and your vet approves it directly — most refills don't need another visit. Autoship is available on eligible items, saves 5% or more, and can be paused, changed or cancelled any time. Orders are fulfilled by Vetsource, our licensed veterinary pharmacy partner.

SplootPack takes 10% off preventatives, in clinic and on SplootRx, along with 3 free exams a year and 10% off everything else. It doesn't include the preventatives themselves at no cost — it's a membership, not insurance. Since prevention is a recurring cost, the 10% compounds over a year.

Yes. An active infestation is a treatment problem, not a prevention one: it needs a product that kills what's already there, usually alongside treating the home environment, and sometimes testing for tick-borne disease. Book an urgent care or sick visit rather than starting a preventive on your own — then we'll move you onto year-round prevention once it's resolved.