Seems like a good product to know about. A few reviews down someone complained it wasn’t working and was told the home needed to be treated as well which makes sense. I think flea eggs take 9 days to hatch and then you have to start all over again. When my dog got them it wasn’t so hard because they generally live on the floor. I didn’t have to rip the entire place apart. See my above post on Borax.
I disagree that they don’t chew on themselves for fun because I rank dogs on the idiocy scale at the same level as boys, Both will do idiotic things for fun just because they are idiots.
Okay, she probably had unhealed bites that since have stopped itching so she stopped chewing, but my opinion still stands. 
This is because Elanco does NOT sell any products to online pharmacies. Any US veterinarian who purchases their products has to sign a contract stating that they will not re-sell it. Each package is tagged with a bar code that’s “registered” to the clinic that purchases it, and if Elanco finds product on the market from a re-seller, it will be traced back to the clinic, they will never be allowed to purchase Elanco products again.
Ok, guys… I got the Comfortis today. Fortunately, the little tiny pet store by my job sells it by the individual dose. I can try it out for $20 without springing for the whole 6 months.
The hard part was getting him to eat it. They say it’s a chewable beef flavored tablet, but it is actually a little unchewable hockey puck that smells, and probably tastes, like flea shampoo. I tried sticking it in a sausage and wrapping it up in cheese, but he just eats the treats and spits the pill out. Finally, I wrapped it in fried chicken skin, told him to do a trick, then gave it to him. I held his nose up til he stopped struggling and swallowed it and I made sure he didn’t puke it up anywhere in the house.
Before this, he was basically scratching constantly ever since we became aware of the fleas two weeks ago. In the last hour, I have not seen him scratch himself once. There’s only a couple fleas on him, and they appear to be dead when I try to pick them off.
We’ll see how long this stuff lasts, but it appears to at least be doing something for the time being, and that’s more than other flea remedies I have tried.
Comfortis is just a Capstar that lasts for the whole month instead of just one day. And Capstar IS awesome, so I hope Comfortis lasts as long as it says and helps with your flea infection.
Remember to clean the environment, though!
Even without poison and medication, bathing the dog and vacuuming the house rigorously will help a great deal.
You don’t have to reapply frontline after a bath. It is absorbed by the skin and doesn’t wash off. I bathe my dogs weekly and only apply once per month. I am not sure if the other products work the same way but I would assume they do.
Completely different drug.
It’s just been a bad year for fleas. Of course, the Frontline (and generics) did nothing. The Advantage II was doing okay, but needed to be applied twice as often as recommended. That’s all expensive with 6 large dogs. I’m trying the scalibor flea collar this month. I won’t say it’s a complete success, but the dogs seem less bothered by them. I haven’t treated my yard, because besides fleas, I have toads and birds and butterflies in my yard, and I don’t want to harm them.
StG
Um, I get it from an online pharmacy in the States. Whether they are also a veterinarian—they probably are—I don’t know.
1800 Pet Meds sells it. Drs Foster and Smith sells it. The Aussie pharmacy I normally deal with, does sell it, just not to U.S. customers.
I’m still going with a marketing agreement, enforced by trademark law and the U.S. CBP, as to why the Aussies won’t export to the U.S.
EDIT: listedmia, it’s strange that your dog won’t eat it. Mine seems to think it’s made out of bacon. $20 per dose isn’t all that bad, actually, depending on the size of your pet.
Both drugs work by affecting nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in insects, although they deal with two different groups.
They are also both rapid onset and quick kill (starts working in 30 mins- 4 hours), compared to other formulations which may take a while to “kick in”. This is what I meant with the statement “like Capstar, but lasts for the month”.
It is also a pill, like capstar, and unlike other traditional flea products which are spot-ons.
Comfortis has been a miracle drug for our 3 1/2 month old kitten, who was infested with fleas when we brought him home from the shelter about a month and a half ago. I gave him the first dose (he was only about 2 1/2 months old at the time) from the vet, put a white towel in the carrier (suggested by my vet tech, so we could see that it was working), put Neal in the carrier, and waited. Within half an hour, I could see the fleas just falling off of him onto the towel. It was disgusting, but oddly cool at the same time. After an hour, I took him out of the carrier, and we gave him a quick bath with Avon Skin So Soft soap (recommended by the vet).
I will say, the pill didn’t last the full month, but we have had a horrible flea season here (our vet office has said that they have had no fewer than two animals a day who are infested, and usually around five or so).
We were having a horrible time in our house, too, until I found a miracle cure on the internet - Salt the House!. Our house is mostly carpeted, so this worked like a freakin’ charm for us. We literally just took a salt shaker and spent 30 minutes salting every patch of carpet that we have. We ended up just walking on the floor to grind it into the carpet, waited a couple of days, vacuumed it up, and voila, our flea problem was absolutely gone in the house. Even though the kitten (and our older cat, who is on Frontline Plus) had a few fleas on them a few days before their next dose, we were no longer being attacked (my husband doesn’t seem to attract them, but my six-year-old son and I are apparently magnets for the little suckers). We’re now salting the carpets once a month, and will continue to do so all year round.
I’ve read that the salt dehydrates the fleas and the eggs, and I’ve also read that the fleas eat the salt grains and explode (which made all of us laugh at the image). I don’t care how it works, all I know is that we are flea-free finally.
I’d be afraid that my derp dogs would sit there and lick up all the salt from the carpet, causing them to get very sick. Is this a fair concern, Dopers?
Read the label on the flea med you use. It contains information about more frequent use. The one I use allows you to increase the frequency of use under certain circumstances.
My kitten is a total derp, but aside from chasing the salt as we shook it onto the carpet, he didn’t bother it after that. If you’re worried about it, though, you can also brush the salt deep into the carpet after you dump it - my brother did that with his derp dogs, since they will eat anything (his oldest dog managed to eat an entire bowl of Werther’s Originals and remove the wrappers from each one). Honestly, though, they didn’t seem to show much interest in the salt once he put it on the carpet.
So I’d say yes.
Ha! :p:D
I had a dog with flea allergies and she would chew herself raw. I used BagBalm and it cleared up all the hot spots.
It’s not expensive but it is a little messy.