I have three cats and I dose them regularly with the flea prevention stuff you apply to the backs of their necks (Flea 5X Plus for cats from Pet Meds, to be precise).
With three cats who aren’t always around at the same time, I have a system so that I don’t get confused as to who has been dosed and who still needs their squirt. The meds come in boxes of three doses, so I open a box, write the names of each cat on the box, and check off the names as I corner and dose each cat.
I thought that’s what I did a couple of days ago, and if you’d asked me I would have said “yup, got all three.” But just now, when I went to trash the box that the meds came in, only one cat’s name was checked and there was one dose left inside the box.
So I gather what happened is that I dosed one cat, checked him off, dosed a second cat…and the phone rang or something, completely distracting me.
So now I have three cats, one of which I know got dosed, and two others - one of which got their med and the other didn’t, only I don’t know which is which.
I’m trying to decide the best way to handle this. I don’t want to overdose by giving both cats the meds right away, in case it would be harmful to the overdosed cat, but I also don’t want to let the other cat go too long without prevention. (I had an issue with a flea infestation a few years ago and NEVER want to go through that again.)
Anyway, here’s my thought. A while ago I was talking to a guy who takes in strays and cares for about 25 cats on his farm. I remarked, “flea medicine for all those cats must cost a fortune!” and he said, “well, the vet told me that even though the medicine instructions say to administer the stuff once a month, you can get away with doing it once every 3 months, so that’s how often we do it and we’ve never had a problem.”
Based on that I keep to a five-week cycle rather than 4, but I’ve not been willing to risk three months. In this case, I’m tempted to dose all three cats after 4 weeks, which would mean the skipped cat had to go 9 weeks without a fresh dose. If it’s true that the medicine will actually prevent fleas for 12 weeks, then 9 weeks should be fine.
But I’m just making a wild guess based on hearsay. I have no idea if that vet knew what he was talking about.
Anybody know anything about the effectiveness/toxicity of the flea meds and have comments on what I should do?