What is a good treatment to use ,out where our dogs play, to control ticks and fleas?

Hire a pest control company. The professionals know what to safely use.

with the warmer weather, I believe things will get ruff this summer. I use a combine worm-flea control on my dog.

Mowing the grass short is the best way to control most of the ticks. Then you don’t have to treat as often with the Frontline.

I agree with @WestRiverrat, keep the grass short where they can access the yard. I would still use Frontline or similar though. We have had a bad tick problem here for the last few years.

Fleas are just a pain. They seem to be becoming immune to whatever is in the flea stuff.

I use Frontline on my two cats, but have no fleas in this area, only ticks in spring and fall.
Yes, I’m not a fan of pesticides but if it is that bad maybe call a professional. You don’t want to risk using hardcore pesticides around your dogs if you don’t know what you are doing.

I just control it by treating the dogs and don’t worry about the yard (they spend too much time in the woods and high grass for me to worry about our own backyard). This has been an effective strategy for over a decade in my hood.

I use Frontline on MIlo and also inspect him after he’s been outside. We are at the epicenter of tick-related diseases and it is impossible to eradicate them, either on my 20 acres of woods and fields or the 50+acres owned by my three neighbors.

I often find a tick or two crawling on his fur, but unable to burrow to the skin and embed itself. With a tissue, I pick the tick off and squash the little bugger. It is surprisingly difficult, either due to the tick’s barbs or some quality of cats’ outer fur.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I keep one of these on my key ring. @gailcalled If you use the above to remove the offending critter, then light a match, blow it out and touch the tick with the hot match end. DONE!

Yeah the frontline makes me wonder how effective it is when I still find a tick or 5 on my critters. Right now is a bad time for us to get an expert so I want to do it myself.

The ticks will land on a cat’s fur when he has been treated with Frontline and perhaps get a nibble or two in. But the tick will then shrivel up and fall off, or else crawl around the top of the fur where you can get a purchase with your fingernails, tweezers or the with the ingenious gadget recommended by @Kayak8.