Before we had our first dog, I was already exposed with the tick problem because the house we rented had thousands of ticks. Obviously, the previous occupant had dogs that are infested with ticks. We spent a lot in insecticides to get rid of the ticks inside the house, fumigating the interior for 2 weeks. But after sometime, the ticks appeared again. When we did an investigation, we noticed the ticks coming from the ceiling. That means the pesky creatures have made a hideout somewhere in the ceiling of the ground floor (it is a 2-story house).
Okay, that's done. But when we had our first dog, a year after the fumigation, some ticks appeared. Everyday, our puppy has 5 to 10 ticks. Well, we spotted the source which was the soil in the front yard... and later also in the backyard. We treated the soil with insecticide. Done again. And although our puppy had some ticks once in a while, at least the infestation was already controlled.
As what the title says, for us, ticks are the mortal enemy of our dogs. Until now that we had moved to another house, we still do some fumigating once in a while because we sometimes find ticks in our dogs. And we are still to identify where it's coming from.