Warning About Flea Treatments

I've really, really had my hands full the last week, especially the last few days. If any of you have been to the pet page on my website, you know I have way too many dogs. (But I love 'em all.) We've had a time with fleas this year. Used to, Frontline seemed to work, along with this flea dip I can't get any more. Then Frontline got where it just wasn't working that well at all and wasn't even lasting very well. On top of that, the price has gone up a lot in the last couple of years until it got to the point that I really just couldn't justify or afford the huge cost with the number of large dogs I have.

Well, things were already going bad first thing Tuesday morning. I've been dealing with a very sick puppy for a few days, making trips back and forth to the vet. Tuesday morning I awoke to find the two dogs that stay outside, were both missing. Some how the gate had got opened during the night and they were gone. After searching the neighborhood, we managed to find one, but not the other. I had to have the puppy back to the vet for another IV at eight-thirty, so I gave up after another hour and came home to get ready to go.

Believe it or not, on the way to the vet, I actually found my other missing dog walking down the road with a woman. We were late for the vet, but I was so happy to have found Kane and Clover and have them both home safe and sound.

I was at the vet a long time, Korin's IV bag takes nearly two hours. We made it home and Korin was doing so much better than he had been doing for days before, that I actually felt hopeful he was going to make it. Since I was feeling a little better about him, and was feeling a little better myself since I had been dealing with a stomach bug too, I thought I would go on and treat the well dogs with some flea stuff I picked up at Wal-Mart. It was Sergeant's Gold Flea & Tick, the kind in the little tube that you squeeze on down their backs. (I've used a lot of different kinds over the years, cheap and not cheap.)

After I used this one though, in less than an hour, Lucky started throwing up. I thought with dread that he was taking the same nasty virus that Korin had. Then Lucky began to shake, then shake worse, then he couldn't walk. I thought about the flea stuff and grabbed him up and bathed him twice. I then handed him to my daughter and ran around checking on my other dogs. All seemed well until I looked outside at the two out there. Clover was drooling every where and shaking all over. That began a mad dash to wash every dog at least twice, once with a shampoo and then after doing a little research on line, we used dish washing liquid. During the research we found page after page of info from people who had lost their pets after using this flea stuff, or some other one like it.

It was a very long evening after an already long last few tense days, but by yesterday morning, Lucky and Clover seemed to be over it, and all of the other dogs were acting fine. I took Korin back to the vet and he is off the IV, doing well, eating, on meds by mouth, and the vet said she doesn't need to see him again. I still almost ended up by there yesterday. I have a dog that has seizures and wouldn't just know that he had to have one yesterday just when everything seemed to be calming down again. But he is fine and I was able to control the seizure and get it stopped without a trip to the vet. (I didn't put the flea stuff on him, Korin, or Kane.) I hope they all stay fine for a long while now. So does my credit card. (Ouch!)

Long story short...

If you have a dog, please be very careful with any of these once a month flea treatments, especially this one and other over the counter types that promise to act quickly and last a long time. If you have a cat, be even more careful, since it seemed there was even a larger listing of people who had lost cats from one of these types of flea treatments.