Flea Wars

[Hound dog]

Ok. None of the once a month fea things have worked. Not more than a week or so. Molly and Betsy just ran out of time for the last one. They're covered again. Were actually long before the time was up.

We just did the antibacterial bath/shower for Molly. You don't want to know what the tub looked like. I've not seen it this bad in many years. Nichole is flea spraying the house. Next it's Betsy in the tub. Pet bedding has been washed. Even their collars are going into the wash.

I'm leery of the flea bombs. Most likely won't go that route with a toddler in the house. I will shampoo the carpets with antibacterial soap once I have enough hours in a row free.

Dogs are no longer allowed out to just play in the yard. Not unless I can find that wonderful flea powder for it I used to buy. Just a quick in and out to potty. Vacuum twice a day, including the tile in the kitchen/bath/laundryroom. Keep litter box changed. Use flea spray on dogs, and keep them bathed at least every 2 wks. All animal bedding has been washed and sprayed.

This does remind me of back in the mid 90's when where I lived was having a bad year. The beagle we had then was getting bathed once a week and resprayed, yard was being repowdered everytime it rained. It was awful but that was the only way to keep them down.

Now, my biggest problem is Bruce. I cannot bathe this cat. Not without serious bodily harm. I also can't find a flea medication that will work on him for more than a couple of days. So everytime I get the dogs taken care of, they all just hop on poor Bruce and reproduce.

Nichole may just have to risk it. We're going to stop at walmart tonight to buy some heavy duty rubber gloves......

This is ridiculous.

 

[SaraT]

I don't know if this will work on cats, but for dogs you can buy the brewers yeast with garlic. The garlic keeps flea, flys, and ticks off the animals and I have never used regular flea stuff. The garlic works wonders and is not toxic.

Not sure if that helps any.

 

[ScentofCedar]

Same situation here, Lisa. (I love the title of your post!) Even though the cat is treated, we put a flea collar on her the day before yesterday.

I think it is helping HER, though the dog is still picking them up outside. What I have been doing is manually picking the fleas off twice a day. (Not off the cat ~ yikes!) I keep a wide-mouthed pint jelly jar with water and Dawn in it to put the fleas I catch into ~ voila!

They are paralyzed and fall to the bottom.

Though both our animals are treated and I have cat flea powder under the cushions on all the furniture, we are being overrun with fleas, too.

My flea jar count runs between thirty and forty a day.

So, you figure thirty fleas x 30 days = 900 fleas a month who are dead ducks and 450 fleas a month who are not breeding in the house.

The lady at Frontline Plus? Said we must be picking up flea eggs on our shoes, and that if we were not happy with the product, they would replace it. We got our last three month supply from Joe's Pet medications though, and they would not replace from that source. Lest anyone think the Joe's Pet medications Frontline Plus was less efficient than the Frontline Plus we had been buying at the vet?

We went back to the vet for the Frontline Plus as an interim measure until the free replacements came in from Merril. (This was before we knew Merril would not replace from Joe's.)

The Frontline Plus from the vet is not working any better.

We don't let the animals sleep in our bed, anymore.

Heh.

At least, WE are a little more comfortable!

Barbara

 

[klmno]

Lisa- there is a pill that you can get from the vet to kill the fleas. It isn't the once-a-month preventative pill, but I don't know the name of it.

Also, there is a liquid you can get at Southern States or someplace like that and you spray it in your yard- if you want, I can find the name of it. It can be used for various bugs- even termites- at different strengths. It comes with a chart and good instructions. You would need one of those dial-type bottles to connect to the water hose so you can set the rate of the mixture. The liquid is expensive but it works pretty well.

 

[Hound dog]

I'm picking up the brewers yeast and garlic this afternoon on my way home from school. I've used it before, but it's kind of hard to find around here. And Im gonna try it on Bruce too if I can get him to eat it.

klmno the name of the spray would be nice, but if it's too expensive I might not be able to get it.

I'm praying for a good hard freeze soon. (isn't that awful?)

 

[klmno]

No problem Lisa- it will be later this afternoon since I'm headed out the door right now.

 

[clingingtohope]

Also for in the house (carpet wise) you can use 20 mule team Borax. If I remember correctly you need to leave it on for 24 hrs and then vaccuum. We had horrible fleas a couple of years ago so we set off bug bombs when we left for vacation. We come home and they were not dead...more like moved to the tiled bathroom door that didnt get left open. So I used the borax (with a 2 yr old in the house) and it worked. HTH!

 

[flutterbee]

Lisa, I got the brewers yeast with garlic at walmart.

The Advantage (I just treated everyone again) says, "If re-treatment becomes necessary earlier than four weeks, do not re-treat more than once weekly."

It seems to hold on the cats for a good 4 weeks. But, I've been treating Jewel about every 2 weeks and today Buster is really digging on himself. It's been about 2 weeks since he was treated.

 

[susiestar]

Lisa,

First of all get the vet to give you Capstar tablets for ALL the animals. Capstar will kill the fleas on the animal for 24 hours. When it gets bad here I do it for a WEEK - 1 pill a day. I NEVER EVER EVER did this the same week we gave the heartworm pill, just because they are both bug killing pills and I wanted to be careful. OUR vet thought this overcautious, but we were dealing with my furbabies.

Then get ADVANTAGE. Go on EBAY and order it in the large dog or extra large dog size. The cat and dog formulas are slightly different, the dog kind has less of the ingredients than the cat one, so the dog one IS safe for the cats. I have a bottle I pour the medication into, then I use a tiny, needleless syringe to measure out the right amt for the cat (and for sweetie when we had her). You can look up the various packages for different size dogs and cats to see how many mls are in the pkg for a dog of X lbs. Then put that many ml's on the back of the dog. (Using the xlg dog advantage, we spent less than $30 for an entire YEAR of flea medications for the cats, and we used it 2x a month for quite a while)

VAcuum the house repeatedly, changing the bag each time. Take the bag and get it out of the house right after you vacuum, even if it is not full. Or use a bagless and WASH the filters each time (mine get rinsed with water, but it gets the stuff out - I rinse it with the hose).

You also may need to treat the entire YARD. Go and get Sevin dust and dust the yard. Wear a mask, and long pants and long sleeves. Sevin dust is the same stuff they used to sell in the shakers for flea powder (last time I read the pkgs, they were exactly the same, only the shaker was a TON more expensive).

If you treat the yard, capstar the animals, and get on a schedule of every 2 weeks advantage or frontline, you should be in better straights. Double check that the advantage dog and cat formulas are the same - I am pretty sure that is what we used, but it might have been frontline. Or I may have switched them out.

I jsut know that if you buy it in the size for the biggest dog you can find, and get it on ebay, you can divide it yourself (all that nurses training should come in handy with measuring teh mls) and save a TON.

Good Luck!!

 

[donna723]

The Frontline Plus didn't work for much of ANYBODY this year! I have always used it with good results before, but this year it just didn't work. Supposedly the fleas have built up an immunity to it.

I went in yesterday to get my girls something different - came home with three doses of Advantage to try. It doesn't work on ticks, but we don't have any where I live now. I just put the Advantage on them yesterday afternoon so I don't know if it works or not yet.

 

[susiestar]

OH - I do NOT recommend putting Sevin dust on the animals. I just mentioned the flea powder shakers to show it is the same thing. I am uneasy about having that on animals, though not on the yard.

It may be sevin liquid that klmno is talking about. I just found the dust easier to find. The liquid would be nice here in the land of OK, where the 30mph wind is considered a "nice gentle breeze", LOL!!

If frontline doesn't work, switch to advantage or revolution, being sure each can be used safely on both dogs and cats of your animals ages. Or get one for cats and one for dogs, or whatever.

Vets do NOT like to recommend buying the larger animal size and dividing it because that CUTS INTO THEIR PROFIT. The vets make more $$ if you buy indiv doses from them. But for those of us who have titrated our kids on medications for years, titrating or measuring doses of this stuff for our furbabies is usually pretty easy.

Susie

 

[klmno]

Lisa, if you want to try this, the name is Talstar Professional. I'm putting a link about it's use for fleas below. The link says there are cat fleas and dog fleas- I never knew that but wonder if it's the reason some people's cats are harder to treat than their dogs. Anyway- keep pets and kids off this for at least a day or two. (Well, I usually did it in the evening in the back yard and took the dogs to the front until the next day- with young kids, I'd keep them off for at least a full day and night.) It is very potent. It's very handy though because it can kill about any insect there is- I originally bought it for use on my roses. When I learned how many different things it kills, I decided that I don't mind buying a bottle a year for about $50 to use on whatever pest is bugging me at the time (no pun intended). It can save calling an exterminator for some things.

http://www.fmcprosolutions.com/FMCSpecialtyProductsLibrary/PestLibrary/Flea/tabid/1254/Default.aspx

It is costly- but it is concentrated and goes a long way. If you aren't comfortable using it, Southern States could probably recommend something else that works well. I also found on the internet that there is some chemical composition that works best for killing adult fleas and another for killing the eggs- maybe the vet could advise you on what to look for in ingredients. Of course, good advise has been given by other posters here, too.

 

[Hound dog]

Thanks guys. Klmno thanks for the spray info. I think I'm gonna have to splurge as this is just out of hand.

I've been asking people at school if they're having issues. I'm getting the same feedback from people using any of the frontline type products. So maybe they're just really bad in our area this year? We've already been thru 3 of them with no success except for about a week.

I've got the garlic and yeast. I've got flea powder. I got Bruce a heavy duty flea collar. (I hope works) And I'll get the spray for the yard........Except I dunno what I'll do with Rowdy. Guess I'll have to put him in his kennel for a day or so.

And Nichole just powdered the carpet in her room and put too darn much on.........ugh! I had her close the door and wait a bit before using the vacuum as Molly likes to sleep in there and she has alot of fleas in the room. I won't do the livingroom until Aubrey goes to sleep.

 

[klmno]

Good luck, Daisy- I know it's a chore to get rid of them. This product info says you can use it indoors, but I'd be a little leary with Aubrey around. And, wear gloves and make sure you don't get it in your eyes.

DARN IT- I just found a flea on one of my dogs- I bet the other has them too. I've been checking them but haven't seen any before this- I had a feeling though because of the way they would quickly turn to scratch an itch.

 

[donna723]

One thing I have tried that really worked well is the Frontline spray from the vet! It really kills them off of the animals but you have to use it every week or so. It might be that it worked because it's a bottle that I bought last year when the formula was slightly different. I only have a tiny bit left and I don't know if what they sold this year is the same as last year.

Supposedly, the manufacturers change their formulas slightly every few years to keep the fleas from building up an immunity to it and whatever they did this year didn't work! I don't know if it was just the Frontline or all of them.