Flea Problems have EVERYTHING to do with DIET & HEALTH

As I have said before and will say again...Harley has been on the "better foods" and he has had diarhea and vomiting.  How is holistic feeding going to help that if he cannot process it and it makes him ill?  Better foods are great if the dog can process and do well on...but in the case of a dog who cannot...I need to find what works and stay with it.
I have also tried the natural flea drops and they don't work well.  They didn't keep the fleas or ticks at bay for long either. The natural drops made his skin irratated and red.  K-9 advantix did the same thing to him. 
The only things that have detered the fleas are flea shampoo(not holistic) and Absorbine Ultrashield or Greenshield.  I have noticed a difference withgiving him apple cider vinegar. 

Not all " better foods" work on all dogs...if they could that would be wonderful and I would spend the money if he could tolerate the foods health wise but he can't.  I am sure many people think I am horrible because I do not feed the better foods but I feed what works for him.  I can only do what works best for him and it isn't do for lack of trying.  Don't condemn those of us who are brave enough to say hey we do feed Purina or whatever because it works and our dogs do not do well on the "better foods".  If you had a dog whose health suffered when you feed them "better foods" and the Purina worked maybe you would understand and maybe you wouldn't and just keep going on with different foods as your dog's health suffered.
Where is the scientific proof and if it is so much better your way why aren't vets and everyone else jumping on the bandwagon? Why because it doesn't work for all dogs.
I fed my Rott Purina Hi pro and he never had a flea.  I never gave him flea treatments at all.  So I guess it doesn't have everything to do with diet because my Rott was proof otherwise.

According to some of the golden owners on my golden boards who feed raw, TW, etc, they still have problems with fleas and we have talked about it a lot.  And I am pretty sure I have read posts here by top of the line feeders who are having trouble with fleas. 
 
I read one post that brewers yeast and garlic are bad for a dog, then read another that they should be given this things.  I personally don't think they are bad and have considered adding them to my dogs food.  But I am leering of new stuff.

I only have one dog who has a problem with fleas. Emma. She is *not* a healthy dog, despite her glorious appearance[] Her immune system sucks, and she gets an allergy/irritated skin smell. Then, she gets fleas. It never fails. Teenie doesn't get them. Mom's dog doesn't get them. Foster dogs don't get them. Just Emma.

I really think it's related to how healthy they are.

I think a good diet helps but I do think the environment and stress as well as other factors can influence health as well as having a dog with or without fleas.  So I believe it does not have EVERYTHING to do with diet. 
That's like saying if you are a person and you eat holistic and exercise you will have a long healthy life.  In theory that works but if you live in an area with radiation or other problematic toxins...suddenly you can have a different outcome.  There are people who can eat garbage food and live long healthy lives and others who eat great and die young.  It depends on environment and genectics.  Some people have very strong immune systems and others don't.  Out of everyone in my family I am the only one who the mosquitos leave alone and I certainly do not have the best diet nor do I put any type of repellent on.  So why is it they leave me alone..I have no idea....so should I say that eating a lesser diet is why they don't bother me...no...It is what it is.  Obviously it is better to eat great and exercise but how many of us do it and how many of us do it for our dogs.  If you can and it works more power to you but if it doesn't you gotta find out what works and stick with it.  Each dog as each person is and are indviduals and need to be treated as such.  We need to take care of our dogs and do what works for that individual...there is no cure all/fix all.
 
Look I too can find article supporting feeding Purina and Eukanuba and Iams:
[linkhttp://www.thepetcenter.com/imtop/nutritioncomments.html]http://www.thepetcenter.com/imtop/nutritioncomments.html[/link]
You can find anything online to support your side.  The point is I do know that Purina is not the best food in the world but Harley does well on it.  I like sharing different views on here but there is no one way fits all way with dogs.  We are all trying to do the very best for our dogs and should not be condemned for doing so.  There is no perfect way nor no perfect dog.

I think I said it before.  When we were kids, we all ate the very same food.  Mosquitoes flocked to mom like she was a blood bank.  Us 5 kids were annoyed and bitten, but nothing like Mom.  And Dad was rarely bitten.  I have no explination for it othe than body chemistry.  I was probably the least healthy of all as I had rheumatic fever at age 10 and got a slight heart murmur and joint damage.  But i still didn't have the trouble with skeeters that Mom did.
 
You would hard pressed to find people eating any better than we did, poor as we were.  We had our farm fresh veggies in the summer, canned and frozen in the winter.  We had farm raised hen eggs, farm raised pork, beef, and chickens, wild quail, dove, duck, squirrell, rabbit, fresh caught fish from unpolluted waters.  We had naturla spring well water with no added chemicals (except for the time the possem fell in the well and drowned.)  To me that is the top of the line food.  Only thing, we did have dessert almost every night and lots of home made ice cream made with pure, fresh cream from our cow's milk, and i reckon all those pear pears, black berry cobblers, apple pies, chocolate cake, banana puddings, and ice cream was not that good for us.

I challenge all of you to come down to New Orleans with your dogs and see if they get fleas. My mom came to visit and brought her dog. He has never had fleas. When she got back she noticed he had become infested. I promise it is not just feeding good quality food. I feed one of the best dog foods available and Sunny still has fleas as soon as those spot-ons wear off. She also gets plenty of exercise very day and is healthy. It makes me want to demand my money back from the makers of the products!

I put Frontline Plus on my 3 goldens on Oct. 6 (always put the little "tube sticker" on my calndar).  On Monday--23red I think was the date--they had fleas.  The girls were not so bad, the old man crawling with them.  This has happened almost every time I put it on them this year. 
Well, i called the company and they said fleas are killed in about 18 hours and are all killed, so these means Buck had picked all the fleas up the day before, probably a new crop had invaded our yard.  Well, on Saturday  hubby had mowed the back yard and I was out there and neither of us got a flea on us, and then it rained Sunday and the dogs were only out long enough to do business and only barely off the patio.    If there had been that many fleas in the yard on Sat. surely me or hubby would have gotten a few on us.  Also, neither of us has ever gotten any on us in the house in years as i keep working to make sure they are not in the house.

The fleas on Buck were from tiny to huge.  I do not think the Frontline was killing them like they said.  They told me to wait 30 days between applications.  So what do i do for 2 weeks?  I went to the vet and got those Capstars tabs which kills fleas instantly, but only for 24 hours  and sprayed the yard.    And I have been rading on all the forums I belong to that Frontline is not working the way it did in past years.  One of the techs on one of the golden forums said she uses Advantage one month, Frontline the next.  This is in Florida.
 
EDITED    Sunny is BEAUTIFUL.

I have not have fleas in about 15 years or ever sinece we had spinkler water systems in our yards.  I know the water drowns them contrary to what some people say, the water only stuns them.  I used to have such flea problems with 4 cats it was gross. Had to bomb the house and bath cats all the time.  My cats were indorr/outdoor and ate a lot of raw little animals and birds...they all lived into the 20's. 
 
I recently read that spinkling table salt on your carpets will kill fleas and eggs. 
 
My Golden got his first tick of the year as compared to 4/5 last year,  Now I attribute that to his raw meat diet and he is very healthy now and was sickly when we adopted him.  Like wise,,,my puppy with a compromised immune system got 6 ticks this summer.  And my other dog had no ticks,,,,he eats a very good diet.   I dont' put any repellents on them.

Sandra--thanks. I think her white fur attracts fleas, though!

I am back from the vet and have purchased two capstar tablets--one for now and one for our next bath time. I am making sure I kill all those monsters before I apply K9 advantix. I have been doing sort of what your friend is--rotating b/w frontline, advantage and K9 advantix. My next step is to upgrade to sentinel when I run out of interceptor next month. Fleas are a very expensive problem. I read on advantix that re-infesting fleas are supposed to die in 2 hrs. I know that is not true b/c if I bring Sunny back in from outside and search her 6 hrs later I still find fleas! It is just awful. Those companies should make a better product or refund our money.

Fleas were really bad this year.  It was a constant battle at our house, which is new to us and had dogs before that I know were not cared for that great.

Ironically, only my Maremmas escaped the Great Flea Scourge of 2006.  They never get anything on them and I never treat them with anything, either.  I wish I could transfer that ability to the other dogs, somehow . . .

Many dogs do better on some of the higher Purina foods. OK Beneful is horrid, but I've seen a lot of nice looking dogs on Pro Plan or Purina One. You might consider trying some of Sandra's crockpotting recepies. Many dogs who have trouble processing dog foods or raw foods will thrive on home cooked.
 
One of my dogs had really unpleasant gas on every single kibble I tried. My conclusion is that something about his digestive system doesn't like kibble.

I'm at my wits end with fleas.  My indoor dog has them, and nothing I do gets rid of them.  Flea shampoo kills them...for a few days.  I've tried many different brands.  Flea collars seem to do absolutely zip, and again I've tried several brands.  My youngest daughter woke up one day with a lot of flea bites, but they've never bitten my other two kids or my DH or I.  After treating the dog, the beds, carpets, etc., my daughter has never been bitten since, but our dog still gets fleas within a few days of being treated.

Interestingly enough, I have two other dogs that are indoor/outdoor, and I have never found a single flea on either of them.  I have no idea why.  All my dogs get regular vet check-ups and are healthy.  All ate the same food until recently when I changed the indoor dog's food to see if it would help.  I never find fleas anywhere but on the dog, and nothing I've tried gets rid of them.  I'm at a loss.

Hello there

I am not sure how to say this any nicer, but this is about the biggest bunch of baloney I have read in quite some time. Our esteemed member writes "What attracts a flea to your pet is the odor emitted through the skin caused by toxins, chemicals and additives in your dogs food and their overall lowered immunity." That is of course demonstrably false. What attracts fleas are odor components that were hardwired long before there even was such a thing as food additives of any kind. (I personally was in the lab that did actual, relevant, research on this topic)

"Healthy dogs do not attract pests." So that means, just feed the right food (whichever that might be), and your dog will neither be stung by mosquitos, nor acquire heartworms, nor any other worm disease, nor fleas, nor mites, nor ticks, nor rabies, nor ...

Claims like that normally invite two sorts of responses: either open ridicule or blunt derogatory statements. I will opt for a third and paraphrase Carl Sagan: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you make over-the-top contentions like this, provide some references in peer reviewed technical journals. Of course, you won't find any.

Anyway, good food is important, no question there. Feeding quality food can strengthen the immune system and avoids putting additional stresses on a body. Some of the best dry foods are for instance the Innova and the Solid Gold products. Purina Beneful for instance is better than the real cheap foods, but still far from ideal (just look at all the colors... dogs do not see them; that should give you a hint about the quality of the food:>. If cost is a concern, look at the calorie load. If one feeds for instance Innova Adult formula, each cup fed has about 560 calorie. Purina Beneful has about 350 per cup. That means, you have to feed only about 60% as much with Innova than with Purina. While it still might turn out to be slightly more expensive, the differene is negligible, while the benefits of a good diet, unquestionably, are large.

Now I am hungry and must go.

ORIGINAL: belleandcodysmom

IWhat attracts a flea to your pet is the odor emitted through the skin caused by toxins, chemicals and additives in your dogs food and their overall lowered immunity.

This statement alone completely nullifies whatever else was said in your post. Its obvious that this is an outrageous claim, and I didn't even bother to finish reading the rest of the post.

Fleas are attracted to heat, humidity, vibrations, abrupt changes in light, and carbon dioxide....

If fleas were attracted to toxins and additives, how on earth did they find a meal 500 years ago before such things existed???

When I fed my dogs a lower quality food, we battled fleas.  When they moved to a higher quality food, the fleas vanished.  Between Innova or Canidae and homecooked along with some raw, we don't have flea issues.  I use nothing to prevent them and I have lived in Savannah GA as well as coastal MI which is primarily sand...thus sand fleas.
 
I live with six large dogs so I can pretty well promise I'm aware of little things like fleas......diet is key to body chemistry and thus CAN be an important factor in avoiding the little varmits.