TIP fer dog owners about fleas and ticks.

[Beekissed]

THAT is a cool tip! I'll try that! How bout salt water in the meantime? Like a spray bottle with concentrated brine, then a rinse with clear water to get the brine off, if you haven't the time for a full bath?

 

[roosmom]

That might work!

 

[ams3651]

Don't forget about food grade DE. We use it on our outside dogs and their bedding.

Our inside dogs are confined to their own yard, so we don't have a problem much with fleas or ticks.

Someone dropped a small kitten off at our place a couple of weeks ago. She's crawling with fleas, but she's too young (I'd guess she's maybe 6-7 weeks now) for anything I could find at the store. Been bathing and flea combing her, but I never get them all. I have food grade DE that I keep on hand for the chickens, do you think I could use it on her? I would imagine it had to be kept away from the face?

call your vet about grooming. I had a young kitten that I had to take to the groomer at the vet to have a flea bath because she was so bad. I bombed the house and they were nice enough to keep her all day. Fleas can kill a young kitten.

 

[zoomummzy]

I use regular bathing with Dawn and Lime or lavender EO, flea collars. Seems to do the trick. The whole drowning the flea thing may work, but I doubt it kills the eggs, so within 2 wks you may have just as many fleas that you had before. I've used it for animals that are crawling, or severely infested, that I have rescued. It does take care of the majority of the fleas, but not all.

I've tried using cloth collars soaked in a mixture of essential oils that repel ticks and fleas, but the dogs literally HATED these and would do anything to get them off, or cover the scent, by saturating them with dead animal juice! Nothing like washing an 80 lb white dog until she sparkles, just to have her roll in a dead skunk to "smell better"!

The old fashioned flea and tick collars work fine here, but we may not have the problem as bad as others. I always make sure bedding has cedar chips included and this seems to discourage fleas.

I just joined this forum (I've been a member at BYC for awhile now) and I'm late chiming in and not wanting to really argue on my first post, lol but I have to agree - water does not kill the flea eggs thus the cycle just continues once the eggs hatch. It does kill the fleas given enough time, but the fleas lay eggs everywhere and they will hatch, some quickly, some not so quickly. I think eggs can hatch up to 6 months after being laid. I learned this and a lot about fleas while working at my vet's office for a year.

I'm not a big fan of chemicals of any kind, but I do use frontline and will continue until I find something that works 100% like it does. To me, fleas are just a harmful to pets as chemicals can be. They can kill a small kitten and anyone who has ever had a house infected with fleas can attest to the problems they cause. My grandma used Sevin, I won't but if it works, I say use it.

 

[kcsunshine]

.......

 

[big brown horse]

Salt water does work. I read a book a while ago written by an "old timer" living in Utah, whose family would load up their working dogs and take them to the Great Salt Lake for a swim just to get rid of their fleas.

(They also collected their "table" salt from the lake by letting the water evaporate in open jugs. When the water was all gone, they scraped the salt off the jugs' bottom and sides.)

My own two hounds swim in Puget Sound often and have not had fleas since we moved here. Plus one dog, who is allergic to flea bites and has generally itchy skin, has beautiful healthy skin now.

(You may have to wash them with the salt mix every two weeks and clean and vacuum your home regularly until the eggs are all gone. Oh I would use sea salt.)

 

[chipmunk]

Hey farm_mom- as a pet groomer, I've always been taught to be VERY cautious about using stuff on cats, kittens, and puppies. They are pretty sensitive to chemicals.

What I do to kill fleas is this: using a shampoo specifically stated as safe for cats/kittens, I soap up the cat WITHOUT first wetting the animal. The reason for this is that if you wet the animal, the fleas will make a bubble around themselves to avoid the soap when you put it on. Leave the soap on the cat for 10 minutes, then rinse it off. This method will kill the majority of the fleas.

Be sure and talk to the cat & stroke it during the 10 minutes so it's not totally miserable during this process!

***carolyn***

 

[QueenRed]

What about cleaning your house? Do you just vacuum a lot to get the fleas or what?

 

[savingdogs]

I have had lots of dogs for years and also cats and have worked for vets. In California when I was growing up we had terrible problems with fleas and I tried all the natural remedies available and I mean ALL of them. I did not find anything that really got rid of them easily although alot of things will help.
Frontline and/or Advantage are miracle products to me and I've learned they have very minimal impact on my animal whereas parasites have a huge impact.

I do economize by not using these products on all my pets all the time. I find it is more effective than the label states.

To me this is just such an easy solution I cannot help but want to buy these products as one of my few luxuries.
I also economize by buying the largest size and measuring it myself for my various weight animals.

However the last person asked regarding cleaning to remove fleas and indeed you can get ride of alot of fleas in your environment manually. Bathing the dog, vacuuming the carpets and furniture, washing all dog bedding and beds in hot water and cleaning your floors. Fleas tend to cluster around the corners and baseboards. If you see a few fleas on your dog or cat there are probably many living in your house. If you have an infestation it can really be difficult to get rid of them with just cleanliness, but diligent housekeepers can sometimes just keep manually getting rid of fleas without using too much product. In warm weather they can just be in the yard. They hatch in about two weeks so you have to repeat whatever you do every two weeks for awhile.

Ticks are also repelled by Frontline Plus and are a problem in my area so I use it on my long coated dogs who are the ones who seem to get the ticks.

I do not use Advantix which is Advantage with an added ingredient to repel ticks. It is too strong and not recommended by the veterinarians I have worked for. It can kill cats if applied to them accidentely (it is made for dogs only). It is an undesireable product in my opinion and far different than regular Advantage.

But other than that I would recommend those veterinary products as safe and actually cost effective. Revolution is also an effective product and kills worms too. The active ingredient is ivermectin which is probably familar to most of you.

From my experience I'd just stick with what vets recommend, Advantage and Frontline, just don't use it quite as often as the packaging recommends. They are good stuff and worth the money IMHO.

 

[Wildsky]

I bath my dog in a mixture of Peppermint and Tea tree soap I use Dr. Bronners liquid soap and so far so good, we've not seen any ticks or flea's at all.
(we might just be lucky, but I think the soap has something to do with it)