Another method, which someone else mentioned, is to sprinkle stuff with sevin dust. Safe for carpets, yard, plants, *and * pets. It won’t keep the fleas and ticks down as long as Frontline, but it really does work and is less expensive if budget is an issue.
When we lived out in the woods and just couldn’t keep the ticks off the dog, we used to pour some in the toe of an old sock, tie it shut, and just kind of bounce it all over the dog like a big powder puff. He thought it was a great game, and he was flea-and-tick-free within 12 hours. (The ticks would also drop off instead of just dying and staying attached like they sometimes do with Frontline.)
Using sevin dust regularly to treat your yard and such will help a lot, regardless of what you use of the dogs. Personally, I suggest Frontline, which kills adults, eggs, and nymph stages, but that jmo.
Will second, or third or whatever most recnet advice.
Advanatage has worked for both dog and by extension, the house, (I got tired of scratching even though I lay down with dogs)
Also, unless the dog gets into something really bad, like mud or something decomposing (don’t you just hate it when they roll over on a dead fish) I don’t bath the dog. It is really bad for their skin even when you use the dog shampoos that aren’t suppose to mess with the natural oils.
Just to clarify the point, what the link states is that the manufacturers of these products only allow their products to be sold through veterinary clinics or hospitals. They do not allow these products to be sold through grocery stores, kennels, groomers or on-line sources. That means if you buy Advantage, Frontline or Revolution through any source OTHER than a veterinarian, the manufacturer did NOT provide it to the retailer. Therefore, they somehow obtained the product they sold you through other means, such as black-market or from another country. You may be lucky and get the exact same product as you would have through legitamite means, but there is no way for you to know that. The guy selling you a Rolodex watch on the street corner for a cheaper price might be selling you the real thing, too, but again, you have no way to verify that and no legal recourse if you get scammed.
That’s not entirely true. We carried both Advantage and Frontline, we just had to order it directly from the drug company rather than through a distributor. Vets don’t want pet stores to carry it, but it’s not prescription so there’s no reason they can’t. Glitch in the system or something? I dunno, but we didn’t have a problem getting or selling it.
Well, that all depends on your definition of can’t. You are correct that Advantage and Frontline are not prescription products, so it is not illegal for a pet store to sell them. (Revolution, on the other hand, is a prescription drug).
But that does not change the fact that the Bayer and Merial corporations refuse to sell Advantage or Frontline to a pet store (or anyone other than a veterinary hospital or clinic). They cannot “call the cops” if a pet store is selling their products (again, because it is not illegal), so what they will do if they find out where the pet store is getting the product from is permanently cut off that source from ever buying Advantage or Frontline again. Of course, this is not a perfect system, and since it is not illegal, they cannot have the police or FBI track down this information for them. That is why it is not too very hard to find Advantage or Frontline on-line or at certain pet stores. In your case, although I do not have any first-hand knowledge, you did say your father has been a vet for 18 years, and if he also owned the pet store you are talking about, then it does not take a rocket scientist to guess that he was simply buying Advantage or Frontline through his vet clinic and just selling it at the pet store. Or maybe not ;). But if that was the case, for example, and if Bayer or Merial found out he was doing that, they would refuse to sell any more Advantage or Frontline to him. One (or both) of these companies have begun using bar codes on their products as a way for them to find out who such products were originally sold to. If the seller was big enough, they might consider suing them to stop the sales; although they usually don’t go through all that trouble, they have successfully sued to prevent their products from being sold by non-vets.
In your case, the Advantage and Frontline may have been perfectly fine and the same as that purchased from a vet. My point, however, is that since it is not sold to the pet store through official channels, the consumer does not know if it is indeed the same, or a copy, or purchased from a different country (a common practice, I’m told, for some of the on-line sources). You also have none of the protections that the manufacturer offers the consumers of their products.
It also has some info that is just plain incorrect. Much is correct, but there are too many errors for anyone to take this info without the appropriate grain of salt. As just one example, it claims Advantage has the “the added bonus of being effective against ticks.” That is just plain wrong.
I realize you’re making a hypothetical statement, so I’m trying not to be terribly offended, but… thanks for calling me and my father a liar. I appreciate it.
If you re-read my post, you’ll notice I said “we had to order it directly from the drug company”-- I did not say “we were sneaky and had a vet order it for us, because I happen to have this connection, see.” He did (does) not own the pet store I was talking about, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the buisness.
Like I said, maybe it was some sort of glitch in the system or something, I don’t know, but we never had a problem ordering it directly from Bayer and Merial. If we tried to order through a distributor, they (the distributor) wouldn’t sell to us. I guess the point is, go buy it from your vet if you don’t trust other sources. Whatever. I don’t care who you buy it from. I’m just talking about killing fleas.
Meaning until I moved to college, I spent my first eighteen years growing up in a veterinary hospital. He’s been a vet longer than I’ve been alive. I’m twenty two now.
You’re absolutely right, it was a hypothetical but the “obvious” connection I made when not reading too carefully was just too tempting for me not to use to make my point (as proof I was not reading all that carefully and paying more attention to just making my point, I said 18 years - from recollecting your post instead of re-reading it - instead of 25 years).
What you are saying, however, directly contradicts my point that if you buy Advantage or Frontline from anywhere other than a Vet then it is not being sold through “official” channels. I did not intend to call you a “liar” in any way. I suppose in my mind I kind of assumed that you were not the person at the store that actually placed the order, and the people who ran the store just told you they were buying it from the drug companies, when they were actually buying it from another vet who had bought it from the drug company (maybe not actually “lying” per se, but there may have been no need to go into minute details to an employee who was just curious why these particular products came a different way than the rest of the store’s products).
There I go, making another hypothetical example which will end up unintentially offending you.
OK, you’re right, it’s really not worth arguing about. I was just giving an example whereby I can rationalize that I am correct in my knowledge without disparaging you and your experience. There could be a number of other different explanations. It could be that I am just wrong, and what I have been told about Bayer and Merial refusing to sell these particular products to anyone other than a vet is incorrect (FWIW, my info comes from a source I trust - my Wife, who is a Vet, and has had these specific conversations with Bayer and Merial reps). It could be that the policies have changed in the four or five years since you’ve been away at college. If I really wanted to prove it one way or the other I suppose I could eMail bayer or Merial and ask directly, but I’m afraid I’m not that motivated.
I was just trying to give correct info to others who may have been reading this thread that it’s not worth the risk to try and bypass buying Advantage or Frontline from your vet to save a couple of bucks.
i used fleabusters. they come to your house and apply boric acid to your carpets to get the fleas out. but we don’t have animals, we just bought the house and had a terrible infestation and a small baby, so bombs were out. advantage and frontline were out cause we didn’t have an animal to put them on (unless you count the 4 year old boy, who got most of the bites). the boric acid will control anything with an exoskeleton. seems to have worked pretty well, but took 6-8 weeks to kill all the hatching new fleas. but there were more fleas in this house than i have ever seen anywhere.
fleas suck!
my parents use advantage and have 8 cats that go in and out as they please, but no fleas.
I use a non chemical way first. I just put a pie pan of water with a little soap in it on the floor at night with a light next to it or above it if you can do that carefully (perhaps a flashlight?). Fleas jump into it as they are attracted to that light at night & the soal keeps the surface tension down.
We happen to have been an extremely reputable, extremely trustworthy locally owned pet store staffed almost entirely by vet students and animal science majors. 99.9999% of the time, I won’t go into pet stores at all, and when I do, I’m always so infuriated at the condition of the animals and lack of knowledge of the staff and so on and so forth that Mr. Armadillo won’t let me go into pet stores anymore :mad:. Not that I tend to make a scene or something (unless there’s a dying critter, such as a Brazilian Rainbow Boa being kept in desert conditions, for the love o’ the gods) just that he has to deal with crabby me for a while afterwards, heh.
So yeah, don’t buy Frontline from anywhere other than your vet. And don’t buy pets from pet stores. Especially puppies.
