Cat and Dog flea treating!

Lankyrob · 03-07-12, 05:55 AM

I wanted to let as many people know this as possible.

We have always treated our cats and dogs with a product called FRONTLINE, recently one of our cats has started to lose her hair and it looked like she has flea bite dermatitis.

So off to the vet we go and he confirms that is the diagnosis. He asked what we were using and when i said it was FRONTLINE he said the following (quoted exactly as far as my memory allows

)

"We have had a constant stream of people bringing their pets into us over the last couple of months who have used FRONTLINE for their pets and yet recently it has stopped working. It may be that they have changed their formulation or it may be that the fleas have developed resistance to certain pesticides"

IF you notice more fleas in your animals fur or early signs of fur loss then please get your animal checked as soon as possible

infernalis · 03-07-12, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lankyrob

I wanted to let as many people know this as possible.

We have always treated our cats and dogs with a product called FRONTLINE, recently one of our cats has started to lose her hair and it looked like she has flea bite dermatitis.

So off to the vet we go and he confirms that is the diagnosis. He asked what we were using and when i said it was FRONTLINE he said the following (quoted exactly as far as my memory allows

)

"We have had a constant stream of people bringing their pets into us over the last couple of months who have used FRONTLINE for their pets and yet recently it has stopped working. It may be that they have changed their formulation or it may be that the fleas have developed resistance to certain pesticides"

IF you notice more fleas in your animals fur or early signs of fur loss then please get your animal checked as soon as possible

This is good to know Rob.. Thanks.

Many of us have dogs, cats or both as well as reptiles.

I know we do.

KORBIN5895 · 03-07-12, 06:12 AM

My ferret currently has fleas. This is good to know.

insignia100 · 03-07-12, 07:16 AM

The MOST important thing to keep in mind when treating flea infestation is that treating the ENVIRONMENT is just as important as treating the animals. Carpet is a wonderful place to hide flea eggs, so regular vacuuming can help immensely. There are also flea treatments you can use around your yard to help reduce the population outside, too.

It doesn't surprise me that we are seeing more and more resistance to Frontline. It was one of the first products out, and has been used a LOT. It is great when it works, but I honestly only rely on it for tick protection on my cats. My cats get Revolution at the first of the month for flea, heartworm, and GI parasite prevention, and Frontline about halfway through the month for ticks. My dog gets Advantage Multi at the beginning of the month (same coverage as Revolution) and AdvanTIX half way through the month for ticks. If you use AdvanTIX on your dogs and have cats, be VERY careful, because the permethrin is highly toxic to cats.

LISA127 · 03-09-12, 06:52 AM

I prefer Advantage over Frontline. Lots of people have had problems with fleas on the Frontline. Though I do have to say I used it last summer and had no problems. Usually though I use Advantage. Please be careful when dealing with fleas though as too much chemicals on the animal or in the environment can be harmful to your dogs and cats.

You don't need to bomb your house to get rid of fleas. Use a flea treatment that IS effective faithfully on all your animals every month and that will take care of the problem on it's own. Unless you have an extremely heavy infestation anyway.

Snakefood · 03-09-12, 10:49 AM

I also prefer advantage, but for those of you that live in area's where heartworm is prevalent, you shouldn't use that unless you have your dogs on a heartworm preventative medication.

Revolution (another flea product) does take care of heartworm as well, so you could switch to that instead of frontline if that is no longer working for you.

someone else talked about treating the environment, this is the ONLY way to eradicate fleas from your house, treat ALL mammals in your house (except humans!!LOL) and then grab the premise spray called siphitrol. It's made by 3M. spray under EVERYTHING, especially low traffic, warm places. Siphitrol is micro-encapsulated and time released so you only need to spray your house twice per year.

Good luck with the war on fleas folks!!

insignia100 · 03-09-12, 10:53 AM

Advantage Multi has moxidectin which prevent heartworm.

Interestingly, in Europe they use fipronil (the active ingredient in Frontline) to treat kids with lice.

Snakefood · 03-09-12, 10:58 AM

Advantage multi...... didn't even know that existed!! when I was a vet tech, it was advantage, revolution and frontline. But unless someone was travelling south with thier dogs, we didn't bother with any heartworm tx. Don't have them here.....yet.

Diamatacuos (sp?) earth is an all natural way to help kill fleas (or any insect really) I use it on the dogs beds and also have a little jar of it there for grooming time. If I find one on one of the dogs, I pick it out and throw it in the jar to die!

insignia100 · 03-09-12, 11:28 AM

Advantage Multi is a relatively new product. I hadn't heard about I got to vet school in 2010.