We adopted a puppy two weeks ago and a day or two later realized she had fleas. I wasn't expecting it because the shelter had given her Frontline a few days before we got her. She is itchy and miserable, and now our two cats are itchy and miserable. They are on Frontline too! And the cats both wear flea collars because the summer here is flea central. I shampooed the dog with stuff the vet gave her, they gave us oral meds for the fleas, then something called Revolution which is similar to Frontline but also covers other bugs.
We've sprayed the living room where the dog has been staying so the cats can settle in, but now that the cats have them we clearly need to spray the whole house. I was hoping the house wasn't infested, but I've got bites all over my feet now. Blech.
Everyone is recommending flea bombs. I hate the idea of setting off this spray the will spread poison all over our house and then bringing the pets back into it. I am also making an appointment to get all three animals flea dipped. I have been vacuuming like crazy and I bought stuff that you put in the vacuum to kill the fleas and replacing the bags.
Is there anything else I should be doing? Has anyone used the bombs? How awful is it?
And what is the deal with Frontline? It is quite expensive, thoughts on why it didn't work in this case? Is it usually worth it?
Re: Ugh, fleas
Frontline is a good product, but fleas in some areas have become resistant. I would highly recommend trying a different flea product for all your pets.
Advantage Multi does flea and heartworms.
It tends to be my first recommendation.
Bombs are a pain. They do work but they are serious work and yes you do cover your house in chemicals.
I would suggest getting capstar, give them to all animals and vacuum your house making sure to get under all furniture, the couch and wash any bedding you can (theirs and yours). When you are done vacuuming put the vacuum bag in an airtight bag and throw it away. IF you have a canister double bag its contents and throw it out and the use hot water and soap to clean out the canister.
At this time you can put on different topical meds too (I presume its been 2 weeks since they have had topical meds? If you still have issues vacuum every week and clean bedding. Its a pain and its a little slower than a bomb but it does work.
Also you can look at yard treatments to try and move any flea population away from your house so its harder for your dog to bring them into the house.
It takes about 3 full months of treatment to fully get rid of a flea infestation. It is a pain but it takes that long since none of the products you are giving the animal kills all life stages of the flea (nothing does). This means that some of the eggs will grow into adults before they die so just because you treated once does not mean that you are done. You have to continue the treatment for 3 months.
Flea bombs are a waste and I wouldn't recommend them at all. Think about it, the chemicals go into the air and then settle. What is the point of setting the chemicals into the air? Fleas aren't there and once everything settles did it get behind the sofa or under the bed?? No, so why bother with them. I would get a good flea spray from your vets office and spray your ENTIRE house - carpet, bedding, mattresses, baseboards! You want to make sure that you get a spray that has IGR (insect growth regulator) in it because that will help the eggs and larva from fully developing and kill them off quicker. Capstar, IMO, is a pointless pill to give your animals. It will only kill the fleas that are currently on the animal (no different then Frontline or Revolution) so it does nothing for the environment and the animal can continue to get fleas on them since the drug does not last very long.
I know it sucks to hear but you will see more fleas before the problem starts to get better. That is why you want to continue to treat for 3 months even if you aren't seeing that many after 2 months, keep treating! You also want to treat your yard since I am assuming your dog goes outside to potty. Seven dust or diatomaceous earth can be used to treat the yard and help with the problem.
If the animals are heavily infested you can wash them with dawn dish soap to help get rid of them (we use this on puppies and kittens younger than 8 weeks) so it is safe.
Luzern, Switzerland
Bios
Adventures of A. Cook
How long ago did you put frontline on them? If it's within about 3 days giving them a bath is washing it off. I know it says 6 hours or whatever, but by bathing them you are making it less effective. I try to stay away from the topicals, I prefer pills. My dogs are on comfortis for fleas, and the proheart injection for heartworms. I've only ever seen a on my boy and that was at the vet.
I will also say the topicals, don't get rid of the fleas in your home, just the ones on your pet. They can still get on your pet, and then they have to bite before they die. Comfortis is just like capstar it just lasts for 30 days. If you watch within 30 minutes you will literally see the fleas falling off of your pets.
Hi! I lurk here and just thought I would respond with my recent experience. Both of my dogs and my cat had fleas just a couple of months ago, and it got so bad that we had an infestation. We couldn't seem to get rid of the fleas, and being 7 months pregnant at the time, I did not want to go the flea bomb route! A friend of mine told me to shampoo the carpets with Dawn dish soap, it worked for her and my husband gave it a try. It worked like magic! So after that, we vacuumed twice a day to make sure they wouldn't reappear. I'm not sure why exactly it worked so well, but we have not had a problem since!
HTH and good luck! As PPs said, it really does get worse before it gets any better!
ETA: trying to make my siggy pic smaller. Any advice on that? TIA
ETAA: We were treating all of our animals with Frontline before and during the infestation, and the only thing that seemed to work was switching them to Comfortis (at the vet's request), as well as shampooing the carpets and continuous vacuuming!
Thanks again for all the suggestions everyone. We've been trying lots of different tactics. I think the next step is to see where I can get some Comfortis, since it seems like a lot of people here have found it works for them.
It seems like every time I start to get comfortable, fleas show up on the pets again. I pulled one off the dog tonight after 24 hours of being flea free. I know they can spring right up again after days of no activity, but I keep getting my hopes up :P
The most frustrating part of all of this is that the puppy hasn't really gotten a chance to get into a routine. I've spent so much time cleaning and deflea-ing the house that the puppy hasn't gotten as much attention as I'd like. The cats are already thrown by having the dog in the house, and now I can't spend much time with them either. I feel terrible about it, and DH has a really busy work schedule right now. I want these fleas dead so I can focus more on playing with my new dog and training her, and getting the kitties settled in.
Hi there!
We also had an absolutely awful flea problem a few months after we got our dog. He was on Advantage at the time. The vet said that fleas have just gotten used to Advantage and Frontline, like some other commenters have mentioned. We got him on Vectra-3D, which is like frontline and Advantage, but a completely different chemical. You can only get it at vet's offices, though, because they're trying to keep it from being over-used and becoming useless like the other two.
Anyway, what I really wanted to tell you was that even though we were on this awesome stuff, it still took months for all the fleas to go away, so just hang in there! After maybe 5 months, we stopped seeing fleas at all and now, it's been nearly a year without a flea.
Good luck!