rocky mountain spotted fever is a tick born disease, when we moved, we quickly realized that our neighbors dogs had ticks, we bought enough stuff to kill every tick in the neighborhood, but saved most for next year...... I had to make a choice on what to give up..... one of the meds would have hurt his joints, one his muscles, one skin, one his kidneys, and so on..... I told his vet to just pick one, I wasn't going to condem any part of my dog, so she gave him the quickest working one and something to couter it...he was better in a few days.... he's still got about half the bottle of pain killers she gave us, incase he acts like his joints are hurting him....but she said that at the time he was young enough he should out grow any of the side effects....