Well, not actually my dogs since I am not a dog person, but the dogs that live in my house that belong to my mother in law and my children.
Now we have fleas!
I have sprayed down both dogs, gotten them flea collars, sprayed the carpets, bedding, and furniture that they like, and I am getting ready to go out and get stuff to spray the yard with.
My ankles are driving me crazy with tiny little bites on them that have an itch that is going to put me over the edge!
Any ideas on what else I can do to fight this epidemic?
I’ve heard that a little garlic in their food helps. Over time it makes their skin uninhabitable to the little jumping beasts.
Next week before I spray the dogs again I am going to give them a bath. I thought about a flea bath only after I had sprayed them and didn’t want to wash off what I had just spent two hours dog wrangling to accomplish.
For some reason the big dog (lab mix) took the spraying better than the little dog. (yappy Yorkie)
I remember ten years ago we had a bumper flea crop because of the damp weather and people in my apartment building who didn’t have fleas were finding fleas.
I had a cat at that time and it was much easier to get rid of fleas on the cat than it is these two dogs. Hence the thought on spraying the yard. They could just be bringing them right back in after potty breaks right?
Or is this a lost cause? I mean how long can these little hell spawned creatures live off of a warm body to feast on?
Here’s a recent thread about fleas on cats. Some of this might help in your case:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=194318
To answer your question about longeivity, I’ve read that a “newly hatched” flea needs to feed within about a week or it will die.
A mature flea can go as long as two months without feeding.
Thank you.
You know I was feeling all happy, happy, joy, joy when I read about the hatchlings.
That is until I got to your last sentence.
Two months?
With all the itching going on around here BeagleDave might end up posting about a woman in his area on a rampage, and it will be me!
First off Frontline for your dogs will keep the fleas off your dogs.
Second you can bomb your house then use the flea lights.
Flea Lights get plugged in where the dog sleeps or eats and the light attracts the fleas to jump on it and it is really a gummy board.
Use Sevin dust for the yard.
I was hoping this thread was about tuning a ukulele.
See user name.
while you are dealing with this you could sing the official flea song…
ahem, mi,mi,mi…
my dawg has fleas,
oooohhh my dawg has fleas,
oh woe is meeeeee,
my dawg has fleas.
Haning head in shame…Yeah rocking chair, I already did that…it kind of got me laughing so I didn’t lose my marbles spraying off the yapping wonder.
And does anybody know if that song has more than those few words?
I sure would like to wow the dogs with my extensive knowledge of their special song as I am bathing them next week.
And where can I find those flea lights mentioned in this thread and the one linked? I tried petco tonight and they didn’t have them, but they did have the Zodic stuff mentioned in the other thread.
This is the kind I use, and this link was in the other thread:
There are some for sale on Ebay right now if you do a search on “flea trap”.
Thank you, you have been so wonderfully helpful to me!
Tomorrow I will make a few phone calls before I go driving around town on a whim again.
And if that fails then I will brave e-bay.
Never been there before and kind of scared to. I’ve heard the place is horribly addicting. 
We had a terrible flea infestation when I was in sixth grade. I had so many bites on my legs, my dad ended up taking me to the doc to see if there was anything that could ease the itching.
We finally, finally got rid of the beasties after bombing the house several times, calling the exterminators in to spray the house and the yard, washing the dog regularly, and putting Sevin dust on anything that wasn’t moving. What made it so difficult to get rid of the damnable pests was that they’re pretty much invulnerable to harm when they’re in one stage of their life cycle (nymph? cocooned? I forget.), so you had to keep up the treatments so you could eventually catch them when they came out of that stage and went into the next.
I still to this day have a deep and abiding hatred for fleas.
BTW, I am one of the most harmless people in the world where any animal is concerned, even bugs. I literally would not (deliberately) harm a fly. If one were inside, I’d first try to let it out. Wasps, spiders, etc., same thing.
But fleas are a different story. I almost get a sense of murderous glee when I see one of the little bastards struggling after getting stuck on a glue board. I just wanna tell them, “Die, MF, Die!”
We had a terrible flea infestation a few years ago. (Thanks Collie raisin’ neighbors). What really pissed me off is that the fleas really liked the foot of our bed. They tore me to shreads every night, but they didn’t bother my wife or kid one bit! Either they wern’t getting bit, or they didn’t have a reaction to the bite. No one to share my pain with!