Best flea med?

I've been using Comfortis for several years.  It's a tablet, given once a month.  Twister started having a reaction to the Frontline so I switched them all to this.  No flea problems and no problems seen in the dogs.   The active ingredient is spinosad.   For the basement,etc. I would suggest Adams Flea treatment.  He will need to treat and then treat again in a week to ten days.  The yard, the house and the basement.  I don't use insecticides but I would if I had an infestation.  I use beneficial nematodes three or four times a year.  Safe and non toxic to animals, birds, fish, and amphibians. 

Part of the deal with flea treatments in house/yard is you MUST retreat in 7-10 days with a DIFFERENT chemical (so you can catch any resistant to what you used and kill any babies who have hatched).

By doing it once you simply create an army of them that are resistant to whatever you used before.

 Have him put down the DE *thick* in the basement and repeat it in 7-10 days.  That will help a lot (and it won't RAIN in his basement). 

Then have him ALSO go treat around the concrete base of his home -- fleas can come right in thru concrete -- so he probably needs ot treat the yard as well.  (best done on the same days you do the inside).

You have to use a GOOD flea bomb -- preferably one that kills eggs as well. 

After the horrific time Amanda had with Vectra I won't use that  EVER again and Frontline still isn't working.  Your Dad has to remember that Frontline takes days to really work and if there is a fresh crop of them coming in thru the foundation of the house then they're just jumping back on the dog more and more -- it's not that it's necessarily not killing them, it may be NEW ones all the time.

Have him to the DE around the foundation of the house OUTSIDE **and** thickly in the basement and see if that doesn't slow them down.

And for Jack -- give him a bath in Head and Shoulders and USE A FLEA COMB while he's wet.  The fleas you comb out, put them right in soapy water and then FLUSH TWICE.

Man does THIS bring back bad memories

I have used Advantage in the past with no issues at all.  This month, my guys got Comfortis with no issues, & they have NO fleas!  I feel like that will be the flea control that we use from here on out. 

I've used advantage in the past - with no issues.

Recently, I've switched the dogs to comfortis - and they took it with no problem. We have NO fleas, and since the dogs are under control - I don't have to use anything on my cats. I still check with a flea comb, almost daily. 

The advantage was working- but I did find a flea on the dog. I got a box of comfortis from my drug rep - so I'm using that. Love it, and so do all our clients - most of them use it.

Hmm... Comfortis is a pill? Not sure if I like the idea of the flea having to bite the dog to kill it... or Bailey having flea prevention in his blood I just found a couple more on him. Grr.. Its probably because of the infestation at my dads house, cause we werent having a problem before.

Is comfortis expencive?  Is it available in petstores or is it only sold thru the vet? Advantage was somewhat cheap at the pet store, some of the other ones for Bailey's size were $80+  

Maybe I should tell my dad to buy comfortis for Jack, cause this spot-on stuff just doesnt seem to work anymore. He was on Frontline, BEFORE the infestation started, so aparently it didnt work before either.

Isn't there a pill they can take if they already have fleas?  Capstar, something or other? 

willowchow

Isn't there a pill they can take if they already have fleas?  Capstar, something or other? 

Yea when I searched for Comfotis on amazon all that came up was Capstar. I thought it was the same thing at first but the ingredients are different.

 I was looking for the side effects to Comfortis and it didnt seem that bad, no worse than any other flea med.

Then I saw the price. Bailey is 65-70lbs, so a pack for him would be $85 I soooo cant afford that right now. But Im still hesitant to put any spot-on treatment on him ever since last year when he had the reaction fo K9Advantix. The only one he has ever had on besides that is Frontline... Im not sure if its worth it to try Advantage, Im worried he might have a reaction again....  Looks like I might be stuck just picking them off by hand

 Jack only weighs 30 pounds so his would be a little less, but my dad probably would buy it. Hes already pissed cause he "spent all that money on frontline" and its not working . Plus he is only on unemployment right now cause of his back, Im just glad he still has Jack on a high quality kibble. Im going to try to convince him to put DE in the basement. That stuff really seems to work pretty well, I think it would deffinetly help kill the fleas in the basement. But doesnt believe that it works though... and doesnt want dust all over his house.

 Besides the cost of Comfortis, even if it was cheap I still wouldnt be able to get it. Apparently you need a prescription for it? Our current vet wont give perscriptions to buy ANYTHING anywhere but directly from them

And, being more on topic, my favorite pet food store sells a new powder thing called something like "fleabuster". All of the folks in the store use it and they raved about it. I'll have to see if I can find a linky.

ETA: Oh, it's just DE in a container with dogs on it, LOL. It's called 'Spa Diggity Dog Fossil Force'. [http://pookiesbowwowbakery.com/spa-diggity-dog-fossilforcefood-grade-diatomaceous-earth-p-2211.html]

 The reason it's prescription only is because it lowers the seizure threshold. It is NOT safe for a dog with a history of any seizures, a dog under 5 lbs, under 4 months, or ANY cat. It is an internal pill that lasts a full month. That is pretty serious business.

I see a lot of flaky skin associated with it, and Bean totally flaked out on it, so I don't care for it, much. It does WORK, incredibly well, for fleas, though. 

jennie_c_d

 The reason it's prescription only is because it lowers the seizure threshold. It is NOT safe for a dog with a history of any seizures, a dog under 5 lbs, under 4 months, or ANY cat. It is an internal pill that lasts a full month. That is pretty serious business.

 

I see a lot of flaky skin associated with it, and Bean totally flaked out on it, so I don't care for it, much. It does WORK, incredibly well, for fleas, though. 

I was wondering why a flea med needed a prescription.

Thanks to a very generous person... we are going to be trying Comfortis on Bailey and Jack. Neither Bailey or Jack have a history of seizures that I know of, so they should be fine. I hope this stuff works

Thanks to my dad's infestation, Bailey has a bunch of fleas on him now. I pulled a few off of him and put some more DE around his bed.

My dad has a pretty arrogant and very ungrateful attitude to just about everything. Im the one that exercises Jack, grooms him, dremels his nails, all the time, and I dont even get a "thanks" But I deffinitely dont do it for my dad, I do it for Jack. Im giving him another bath tomarrow to try to get rid of some of the fleas until the Comfortis gets here. I'll try to get him to bomb the house again with a better bug killer soon, otherwise the Comfortis probably wont work if more and more fleas just keep jumping on him.

If you are using food grade DE, you can rub it into the dog's coats to kill fleas---make sure the coats are dry.  It should provide some relief until you get the Comfortis

Capstar is just a one day thing -- it kills (within like an hour) any flea on them *then* -but it doesn't do anything to prevent and it only lasts that one day.  But to kill all the fleas on a dog **then** so you can remove the dog from the infestation without a zillion fleas, capstar works well.

I won't use Comfortis because it's systemic -- that pesticide (spinosad) stays in their body all month.  And I believe the flea has to bite them to work (I'm not positive on that).  But I won't risk anything that's a stay-in-the-body chemical

K9 Advantix is nasty stuff --( imidacloprid and permethrin ) but my major beef with it is that it's put out by Bayer -- which is Ft. Dodge (ProHeart 6??) -- I just don't want to use any of their products at all any more.

Spazzy

Im going to try to convince him to put DE in the basement. That stuff really seems to work pretty well, I think it would deffinetly help kill the fleas in the basement. But doesnt believe that it works though... and doesnt want dust all over his house.

Tell him it's a dessicant.  You know the stuff that comes in pill bottles in the little "pillows"??? Or sometimes you'll find packages of it in all sorts of things that they don't want to draw moisture when they are stored (everything from shoes on down).  When something sucks the moisture out of something it's called a "dessicant". 

That's how it kills -- it literally dries the flea out until it dies.

However -- the other advantage of it is it will avoid mold and mildew as well -- You don't have any bad effects from having it around at all.  Tell your Dad that they probably are attracted to the basement because it's more moist down there.

 Does he ever use Damp-rid??  That's another type of dessicant (it actually draws the moisture and traps it -- you put it in closets, etc. where mildew has begun).  DE won't hurt a thing.

Spazzy

Apparently you need a prescription for it? Our current vet wont give perscriptions to buy ANYTHING anywhere but directly from them

I got Advantage a couple of weeks ago from Dog.com and they sent me a decent flea comb with it.  They actually sent me TWO (because I ordered two packages of different sizes) -- so if you want to email me your address again (I didn't keep it) I'll send you one of them.  I'll never use two flea combs!!

calliecritturs

K9 Advantix is nasty stuff --( imidacloprid and permethrin ) but my major beef with it is that it's put out by Bayer -- which is Ft. Dodge (ProHeart 6??) -- I just don't want to use any of their products at all any more.

 I would never have used K9 Advantix if I had known is was nasty stuff. I really had no idea that it was any more dangerous than Frontline at the time, which is why I used it (because it was on sale and cheaper than everything else).

Normally, I dont like systemic stuff either. But NOTHING is working. The Advantage I just put on the cats is working okay, but I still found a few fleas on them. They arent itching as much, but there are still a some fleas. What "safe" flea treatments are left? Not going to use Vectra after hearing some scary stories about it... Frontline isnt working at all, Advantage is helping but not enough. No way Im ever going to use Advantix again, or Revolution.

Yea I know how DE works, its just not helping with this big of an infestation. I put it in Jack's fur, and it did seem to kill a bunch that were on him... but, it doesnt help when more and more fleas keep jumping on him. Its great that its non chemical and that is PHYSICALLY kills them, but it takes a while to dehydrate the flea so there is plenty of time for other fleas to jump on and lay eggs.
It has been doing a pretty good job over here with Bailey, but since my dads house is crawling with them Im sure the yard is too, so whenever I bring Bailey outside he picks up a few of them despite daily brushing.

Spazzy

 I would never have used K9 Advantix if I had known is was nasty stuff. I really had no idea that it was any more dangerous than Frontline at the time, which is why I used it (because it was on sale and cheaper than everything else).

I wasn't snarking at you - believe me, I have BEEN THERE.  The year I met David I had the WORST infestation -- no joke, one afternoon I bathed both Foxy and Mike (this was years ago) in Head and Shoulders to 'stun' them and used a flea comb.  I COUNTED the fleas  There was 646 on one dog and 674 on the other. 

**I HAD DONE THE SAME THING THE DAY BEFORE*  And yeah because of the hundreds I had gotten off them the day before that's why I counted. 

As long as the fleas are able to obtain a 'blood feast' from the animals they will continue to thrive.  About the only sure-fire way he could get rid of them is for you to take the animals AWAY for like 2 months.  Give everybuddy Capstar and take them somewhere complete different. Then he needs to bomb *TWICE* 7 days apart with a flea bomb that will kill eggs.   And have him put DE all over the place.  But you literally sometimes have to starve them out for it to work

DE is *not* fast.  And it's not going to cure a dog with a lot of fleas because it doesn't kill them fast enough.

None of this sounds practical.  And honestly remember both Frontline and Advantage are contact kill -- so the few fleas you see may be ones that just jumped on for a meal.

*Nothing* kills instantly (Capstar is the closest and you can't use that day after day).  Either the systemic ones work after the pest has bitten the animal (and gotten it thru the blood) or they had to wade thru the hair on the animal to die by contact.

And if your Dad isn't gong to be cooperative there's only so much you can do.