flea advice

The thing i have found fran ,rosa is doing a lot of scratching with the collar, she hasnt been sick just will watch her and see.
going to the vets the next fortnight and see what happens will ask vet about the fleas.
sprayed the bedding each morning and powdered the carpets and hoovered.

 

Try a herbal flea collar next time rosa and wipe it over with a bit of tea tree oil weekly to keep the strength up..it works and its not full of harmfull chemicals..I was involved with an animal welfare group once..and their were tests done on some of the chemicals that were in these flea collars and they were not reccomended at all..

http://www.bahnm.org.uk/canine.html

[ 20. November 2006, 05:41 AM: Message edited by: wildflower ]

 

I'm sorry but you have been misinformed. Fleas don't actually live on the animal, they just jump on to get their lunch and jump off again. They actually live in the grass outside or in your carpets and soft furnishings indoors.

They lay thousands of eggs and can lay dormant for many months at the larval stage, even if there is no animal in the house! You will find that once you put the central heating on they all suddenly come alive and go looking for lunch, hence why people get bitten around their ankles and legs

If you do have a flea problem then the house really does need treating, and hoovering daily is advisable but you must empty the bag daily too, or pop a flea collar into the bag to deal with those that you've hoovered up :D

 

The combo version and the spray are still POM (prescription only) products so you would need to go to a vet, or obtain a prescription from the vet (which is free to do now) to buy elsewhere. It's only recently that the Frontline spot-ons have been made a general sale item

The prices charged in the UK are astronomical compared to Europe and Australia and before UK veterinary pharmacies came online we used to buy them abroad

 

thanks purple_faerie, I did treat the floor with a powder and hoover regular and spray around and in rosas bed every day, maybe i should by one of these bombs are they called apperently they reckon they are good seen one in the shop it is �£8 quite a lot but iff it does the job effectively it will be worth buying.

 

I'm so glad someone has exposed this urban myth. It really bugs me (pun intended!!) that people subject their poor creatures to all sorts of treatments when in fact they're being re-infected maybe from the upholstry and carpets but more frequently from the grass outside which is where the fleas mostly prefer to live.

There's also another myth being perpetrated here - that you can 'get rid of' fleas!

I promise you, folks, if you've got cats or dogs or any other kind of pet - you've got fleas. The two go together like bees and honey. You may think you've got rid of them but in truth they're almost impossible to spot untill the animal gets a heavy infestation.

The only answer is to use an occasional treatment like Frontline but spend more time on the carpets and stuff. Regular shampooing is essential - but OF THE CARPETS not the animal!! And please, please, resign yourself to the inevitabitity of co-habiting with them if you want to keep your cat.

 

Hi Rosa, if the powder and spray you're using have come from a petshop or supermarket then I'm afraid they won't be very effective, and I'm also a little concerned that you're using a chemical spray on a daily basis as this will be quite toxic to your poor doggy :eek:

The spray I mentioned in an earlier post - Vetkem Acclaim - is an excellent product and only needs to be used once a year to prevent fleas living in your house. There are a couple of others too, Nuvan Staykill and Indorex, both very effective and like the Acclaim they're only available from your vet, agricultural merchant or an online pharmacy.

You can buy Acclaim here for �£11.49 (P&P might be a little extra, not sure as I've not used this company before) and it will treat the whole house