My dog spent the weekend with my daughter and her dog, and came home scratching. I looked at her belly and was horrified to see several fleas. I use Frontline Plus on her every month, and she isn’t due for another dose until the 25th.
Shouldn’t the Frontline be killing these fleas? If I give her a bath, will I have to reapply it? Is there any flea shampoo that works but isn’t harmful? Should I be using something other that Frontline? (Maybe Advantage/Advantix? I read that one of them is toxic to cats, and I have 4.)
An additional complication is that she will be spending every weekend for the foreseeable future at my daughter’s. My daughter has a sandy yard and has had a lot of trouble with fleas. Her dog also uses Frontline and it doesn’t seem to help at all. She also sprays the house and yard regularly to no avail.
I really don’t want my house to get infested, and I hate to see my poor dog so uncomfortable. I also have an 11-month-old grandson who spends a lot of time climbing on the dogs so I’m concerned about toxicity.
Some regions are having issues with flea populations that are becoming resistant to the active ingredient in Frontline. A simple switch to Advantage will likely do the trick.
Mine does too. Flea shampoo is almost useless. He just re-catches them as soon as he goes outside.
I have a lot of friends with dogs, and apparently the fleas over here in New Orleans are also Frontline-resistant. They swear by Comfortis, which is a pill and apparently renders your dog toxic to fleas. Unfortunately, it’s a little pricey so it’s had to wait until my next paycheck, which is tomorrow. Updates soon.
Hmm, that is pricey; nearly a hundred bucks for a six-month supply. We’re subsidizing my daughter’s flea control also, and I don’t think my husband would go for that. Still interested in hearing your update, though! Maybe the price will come down.
Anyone have any information on Advantage vs Advantix vs Advantix 2? Advantix is the cat-toxic one, but they only need to avoid it for the first 24 hours. Beyond that I’m not sure of the difference.
Make sure you get prescription strength flea medicine. We didn’t realize that there was a difference. Poor Buddy was subjected to every OTC flea concoction we could find. Took him to the vet, who gave us the prescription strength flea medicine. Within 3 days, he was flea free.
Another vote for Comfortis. It is expensive, but it works. Unfortunately, the AUS pharmacy I use will not import it into the U.S. IP law helping consumers again. Haven’t tried looking at S. American or Mexican pet pharmacies.
Failing that…Frontline Plus and Flea sprays seem to work passably well. It was pretty bad in TX last year.
My sympathies for your plight. Fleas are a giant PITA.
The only difference among the size doses of Advantage is the quantity. If your dog is small and you can get a syringe that measures in the 0.1 mL range, you can save some serious money since the prices on the different doses are the same. You can do your own math, but I get four doses per tube for my little dog.
Also, Advantage and Advantix are both available OTC now in many places (for example, Pet-Smart). So you could check if they carry it and switch to that instead of Frontline.
Flea shampoos are useless. If you apply the spot-on product, wait a few days before bathing the dog (at least, that was the last recommendation I got). I usually bathe the dog first, wait for her to dry, then apply product.
There is a new product out, a combination of Comfortis with a heartworm (and intestinal parasite) preventative, called Trifexis. If your area has heartworm and flea problems, and not as serious tick issues, you may want to try it. I’m assuming it’d be more expensive than Advantage and Frontline, but OTOH you’re getting a 2 for one deal.
The first flea med my wife used did not work, but I do not know what brand it is. The second was “natural” and intended to repel fleas; it smelled like peppermint and cloves and repelled me but not the fleas. Then she tried “the one with the soldiers in the ads.” Daughter asked if she meant the one with ninjas in the ads, They settled on “the one with a little white dog on the box,” which I call, “shopping for the functionally illiterate.” It seems to have worked, but one dog still chewed off most of the hair on her butt. There were no signs of fleas; she just seemed to enjoy it.
I asked a worker at the pharmacy if they carried that bitter apple stuff to stop kids from sucking their thumbs, but she hadn’t seen it since her now-adult children were young. The dog would probably enjoy it.
“Maybe if I put some lotion on her skin to soothe it and shook some cayenne pepper on it to keep her from eating it?”
I replied, “No, I’ve trained her to like hot peppers. It won’t slow her down.”
But she’s stopped and now has new clothes of which she is very proud.
Is the dog getting reinfected? Did you take care of ALL the bedding in the house and steam clean the carpets.
You can also diatomaceous earth (DE), but make sure it’s FOOD grade. They even comb it into dogs and cat and feed it to horse. Make sure you get FOOD grade, the pool grade is poisonous.
You can use DE on any bug, and they can’t get used to it because what it is is a fine powder. If feels akin to baby powder but it’s actually tiny cut shells and when a bug or anything with an outer skeleton walks on it, it cuts them up and they die.
Of course it’s not an immediate kill, but it does work, if you give it time. You only have to reapply it if it gets wet, it will not work if it’s wet.
And also use like a sifter to spread it. If you clump it the bugs walk around it
I’m a big fan of DE. Used it to get rid of bed bugs and I use it as a prevention. But I would put it on my dog. It’s okay to put it, the food grade, in the dogs food but that’s for parasites. People claim to eat it for health reasons.
Why I won’t put it on my dog is because it is very drying to skin. More importantly I don’t want her inhaling it.
A dog can chew themselves raw because of flea allergies, with no fleas in sight. Just one flea bite can cause the reaction. There doesn’t have to be a lot of fleas.
Also dogs don’t chew on themselves “for fun”, although they might if they are being driven crazy by boredom or stress. Usually though, they just itch.
Seems to me that Capstar might be a good choice for you given that your dog was exposed recently and outside your home.
Capstar only lasts 24 hours but it will kill all of the fleas on your dog. In combination with a long-term medication and environmental efforts (vacuuming pet bedding etc) it can work well.
And Benadryl–don’t forget the Benadryl. Right now my dog (70 lb.) has been prescribed 40 mg twice daily. I don’t give her that much because she’s only mildly symptomatic (hay feveR) at the moment.
