# Flea product favorites?



## Jennifer/jane (Mar 23, 2014)

It's getting to be that time of year here, and though I don't have my poodle yet I do have 2 other dogs and 2 cats. We had a very bad flea problem last summer, due to my daughter taking her cat for a visit to a friend. All of our animals go in the yard and woods however so I want to be more prepared this year. Just also want to pass on a warning-- diacetamous earth (sp) will kill your vacuum motor if you try to use it 


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I don't know where you are located and what kinds of tick issues you might also need to be concerned about, but we use Advantix 2 on the dogs. You cannot give it to cats though (will kill them). There is a feline variation which I think is Advantage. 

I have never found a tick on Lily, but there was a time when I took the 2 dogs for a hike in a state park in Maryland. We found a couple of ticks on Peeves, but they were dead by the time we found them. From that trip I knew to check the dogs carefully after I found one had bitten me on the way home to Long Island. It was creepy having to drive from the rest stop on the NJ turnpike to our home knowing it (and as it turned out four others) were stuck to me. When we got home I stripped off all my clothes on our deck (it was midnight and all neighbors were sleeping), threw the clothes in a bag and left it outside. While I took a shower to wash off loose ones, BF checked the dogs. After he checked Lily and Peeves he checked me and found the ones I hadn't seen earlier. I now spray permethrin (one of the active ingredients in Advantix) on my clothes and the rug I put under Lily's crate when we do agility outdoors in places where there are ticks.


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## Jennifer/jane (Mar 23, 2014)

OMG I can't imagine having one on me! We are in western NY and one of the dogs is actually on antibiotics now, they found a high Lyme titer on his last checkup (no symptoms though.) We did get the Advantage 2 for the dogs and frontline for the cats. Thanks for responding


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## Jamie Hein (Aug 17, 2013)

Last year I didn't have a problem with fleas or ticks on Kennedy. I never found any on him, even after he spent a week in NC with me and we were staying at a house where the dog had fleas. During that week I did use this spray: 

Vets Best Natural Flea & Home Spray

It can be used on pets and around your home. I also put a natural citronella based flea collar on him when we went on walks in the woods or to the beach but I forget the brand. Both worked well. I've used the spray when I brought fleas home from work and they got on my cats. The spray killed them all and the problem was quickly resolved.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Jennifer/jane said:


> OMG I can't imagine having one on me!
> 
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There was a very major skeeve factor going on there. I knew it was there for at least 2 hours before I got home. I shouldn't have been surprised though since while I was driving over to where BF was after our hike I was pulling them out of my hair and throwing them out the car window! Ticks and mosquitoes both love me big time!


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## JudyD (Feb 3, 2013)

We use Front Line. We have a severe tick problem every year (I found a deer tick crawling on my arm last week--in the house), so we absolutely must have something that kills both fleas and ticks. I'd heard that Front Line was losing effectiveness, but it worked fine for us last summer, so we'll start with that again this year.


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## Wild Kitten (Mar 13, 2014)

I used Frontline in the past, but now I use Advocate, which is meant to protect against many more things than "just" fleas and ticks...... we got many foxes around here so protection against mange is a good thing too... and lung-worm which is spread by snails.


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## Jamie Hein (Aug 17, 2013)

JudyD said:


> We use Front Line. We have a severe tick problem every year (I found a deer tick crawling on my arm last week--in the house), so we absolutely must have something that kills both fleas and ticks. I'd heard that Front Line was losing effectiveness, but it worked fine for us last summer, so we'll start with that again this year.


I am with the crowd that has noticed it is losing effectiveness. Last summer I had many dogs on Frontline who came in covered in fleas. It wasn't doing its job. Maybe the fleas in my area are no longer effected by it but in your area they still are.


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## Grandma's Boys (Feb 28, 2014)

I'm planning on using Revalution for Margot, I used it on my Chihuahuas. I like it because its for Heartworms and Fleas.


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## JudyD (Feb 3, 2013)

Jamie Hein said:


> I am with the crowd that has noticed it is losing effectiveness. Last summer I had many dogs on Frontline who came in covered in fleas. It wasn't doing its job. Maybe the fleas in my area are no longer effected by it but in your area they still are.


I'm not listening, I'm not listening!! Rats. I really hope we don't have to go to the collar (Seresta, or something like that), which was the only alternative the vet gave us last year.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Unfortunately the more we use these products, the more likely it is that the pests will gain resistance to them. Since their generation time is so much shorter than ours (several generations per year vs. decades before our kids give us grandchildren) they evolve to adapt to selective pressures more quickly. Any agent designed to kill (or repel) fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, etc. will eventually be met by resistance as those individuals who already were somewhat resistant survive the exposures. Other examples include DDT resistance in mosquitoes resulting from malaria control efforts and antibiotic resistance in bacteria.


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## Jamie Hein (Aug 17, 2013)

JudyD said:


> I'm not listening, I'm not listening!! Rats. I really hope we don't have to go to the collar (Seresta, or something like that), which was the only alternative the vet gave us last year.


What about other topicals? K9 Advantix for example? I think they all use different chemicals. Maybe your vet only carries those two options, but there are more if you don't want to do the collar. Or you could use the natural stuff like I do. It works for us.


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## Jennifer/jane (Mar 23, 2014)

Add head lice to the list of resistant things... With 5 kids I've been thru a few bouts and even the school said to forget about the shampoos and creams and just manually remove them. Thank goodness I have mostly boys who don't mind getting shaved The house and laundry was wretched though.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

If you want to reduce the likely emergence of resistance for any kind of "bug" you need to rotate the controller or use combinations of controllers. The odds of the organism keeping up is reduced this way. It doesn't matter whether it is a virus, bacterium or arthropod pest like fleas, ticks, mites, lice or mosquitoes. This is the basis of combination drug therapy for things like tuberculosis and HIV.


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## Jennifer/jane (Mar 23, 2014)

So is there anything like that for the flea market? I'm all for keeping the dang things in check for as long as possible.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Check with your vet about what they think works best in your area.


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## Minnie (Apr 25, 2011)

We currently use Sentinel that takes care of fleas and heartworms in one pill and comes in a small enough dose for tiny Bella. But as much as I really dislike doing it during the summer months we have to add a tiny bit of Frontline as ticks are a major problem in our area.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Now Minnie, which area of yours would that be that has all the ticks, Florida or Iowa?


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## Minnie (Apr 25, 2011)

lily cd re said:


> Now Minnie, which area of yours would that be that has all the ticks, Florida or Iowa?


Iowa - they are just awful lyme disease is something we have to watch for very closely especially as our home is out in the country. Florida the fleas are bad but so far I haven't seen any ticks in our area but others have mentioned they can be an issue.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

We have Lyme, heartworm, West Nile, leptospirosis, babesiosis, etc, etc. etc..... A couple of years ago I was out in my yard doing stuff in the garden. I walked down to one end past the bird bath and saw nothing unusual. Five minutes later I walked back past the bird bath and there was a dead blue jay in it. I put it in the frig in case the health department wanted it for West Nile testing. When I called on Monday they said they already had gotten positive results in my area. Thankfully BF didn't notice what I had hidden in many layers of bags. 

We also had a rabies issue recently (within the last five years). Long Islanders believe there is no rabies here, but I think (and have had the same view for a long time) that is a foolish perspective. There were rabid raccoons found on the other side of my town. The local town government told us they would be "carefully placing" vaccine baits in certain places. It didn't seem like it had been carefully placed when I snatched one out of Lily's mouth on our front lawn.


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## georgiapeach (Oct 9, 2009)

I use Comfortis for fleas. It doesn't protect against ticks, but our yard doesn't have a problem with them. I used to use Frontline Tritac, but my dogs and house got so infested with fleas that we had to have the house and yard professionally treated. :-(


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