I took a cat to the vet recently, where, as they were giving him his shots, pointed to the collar and said, “You know, this does absolutely nothing.” Well, I didn’t argue, because in my opinion it does do *one thing, but the question: Are they effective to any real extent?
The reason I ask is this: They gave me some “flea drops,” the kind that you squeeze between their shoulder blades. Up until I administered them, I had never seen a flea either on them or off them. But within hours, I was seeing dead fleas being shaken out of their hair.
*What it does do is it lets people–who might not have seen the cat before–know at a glance that it is a pet and not a feral cat.
Flea collars don’t work worth a damn. Neither do the “flea drops” you can buy at the grocery or discount store. Well, the collar probably keeps the neck relatively flea-free, but that’s about it. Those things and the accursed Biospot drops are essentially concentrated flea spray, ie pyrethrins. Unfortunately, a lot of animals absorb toxic levels or pyrethrins from these products, and pyrethrin toxicity can lead to a very ugly death unless caught early.
Even if the animal doesn’t get poisoned, these products tend to lose effectiveness after the animal is bathed, goes swimming, or gets caught in the rain. Pyrethrins are pretty water-soluble, and they dilute out to ineffective levels pretty easily. And, of course, they only affect the adult fleas that bite your pet.
Frontline, which is probably what your vet sent home with you, is oil soluble and absorbs through the oils in the pet’s skin. It works systemically rather than topically, so it doesn’t wash off once it’s absorbed (you have to wait two days between bathing, swimming, etc. and application to allow for absorbtion.) Merial has reformulated it in the last year or two to include an IGR, so it kills fleas in all their life stages.
If you want people to know your cat is owned, please get him a proper collar or harness. That way he can have tags, too, and someone can help him get home if he gets lost or injured. Besides, a lot of places require any pet to wear proof of rabies vaccination when outside.
Frontline is what I’ve ben using on my dog for several years. It’s a miracle-product. I haven’t seen one tick or flea on her in that time, and I live in an area that absolutely crawls with such vermin in summertime.
Frontline and Advantage are both great products that work as advertised. My mom’s got 4 golden retrievers that are kept happily flea and tick free from using Frontline TopSpot every 4-6 weeks. I just got a puppy a few months ago and have been using Frontline and he’s been clean too.
We have an indoor/outdoor cat who used to only have a flea collar. Cheap, yes, but effective…no. She’s on Frontline now.
A new product has come out fairly recently called Revolution. It is a combined flea/tick plus heartworm prevention medicine. It is reported to be as effective as separate treatments and costs less than separate medications. I’ll be starting my puppy on Revolution when he’s old enough to require the heartworm medicine.
One of my students used one of the off-the-counter products and her cat died. She was very upset and the way she talked about it made me think that these products should not be on the market.