Help. We have been invaded by fleas!!!! What to do

[jwatts]

Help, our lab has just gotten infested by fleas. We have them in our house. Wife and I this morning used the raid brand bombs but they don't seem to work. There still here. Has anyone had this problem before? How can I rid my dog and home of fleas? Our dog got his bath and we use the flea and tick treatment on his neck but he still has fleas. We just came back from petsmart. I spent $75 on spray,bombs,oatmeal soap. Etc. I hope this works. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you

 

[tinydancer87]

To treat the dog you can bathe him, any shampoo will kill fleas it doesn't have to be flea shampoo. Dawn dishsoap works well. Then treat him with an OTC flea medicine from any vet's office like Advantage or Comfortis. In a pinch you can use Capstar but they only work for 36 hours, not a month like the others.

For the house, you can use the Raid in the purple can, and a flea powder such as Bayer or Ortho. Treat the yard as well, and make sure you are vacuuming the house frequently since the eggs are in the carpet.

The best thing you can do to continue being flealess is to treat your dog monthly with the above mentioned treatments. There are also flea treatments with the heartworm prevention included, such as Advantage Multi and Trifexis. These require the dog to be current on an exam, and they usually prevent roundworms too.

It will take awhile to get rid of the house fleas, but be persistent and you will notice them diminishing. I would treat weekly until I see an improvement.

ETA: Dawn will take off the topical you already put on the dog so you can then get a better one from the vet. You should not need any exams, etc. to get the Advantage or Comfortis. Check with your local vet though just to be safe, and to talk to them about what you used on the dog.

 

[redhen]

Great advice, Tiny!

 

[Reurra]

I have cats and in the past, come summer, one flea would get into the house and spread like a disease to the cats. The one thing I found better than anything, even the pesticides is Tea Tree Oil.

A few drops in the carpet, a little behind the pets ears, and the flees leave. They hate the stuff and will start to disappear. I dont know where they go and I dont care. They just go!

If you use it, make sure to use it especially where your pets bed down, fleas will nest in those areas and can be dormant for ages, despite the treatments of pesticides on your pet.

Good luck! Hope you are bale to get rid of your problem!

 

[Nicole01]

Frontline really works for us! For really bad infestations, you can treat a week after applying a dose.

 

[jwatts]

Thank you everyone,Its driving me up a wall, i wasnt sure if i could add more treatment to the back of his neck, thank you. Im going to try the tea tree oil, Thanks again.

 

[canesisters]

There is a home flea spray that works WONDERS. It is an IGR so it gets the eggs and adults, and continues to kill for a long while too. I like it way better than a fogger because I never understood the reason behind covering the walls, ceiling, curtains, hardwood furniture, etc in product. This is designed to spray upside down. You clean the house, then spray the carpet and everything else fabric from about 12" down. I always took the animals out of the house till it was good and dry - but I had a cat who was VERY sensitive to chemicals. It has almost no smell and the knockdown of adult fleas is immediate. If used along with topical, you shouldn't see another live flea the rest of the summer.
We used to sell it when I worked at a vet's office - but you can probably order it from just about any pet supply online store.

​

 

[ChickaBamBam]

Because our 14 yr old daughter is a Brain Cancer Survivor (dx at 3yrs 2 mos), I am very picky about chemicals being used in and around our home--- especially pesticides.

We have four dogs (two labs, a border collie and a beagle) as well as two cats that much to my husband's dislike, are house pets and we have not seen a flea since fall 2007 my kids don't ever have flea bites and since '07 I have never seen a flea on one of my children again.

Below I will give you the steps I took in 2006 and 07 to get them out of our house and off our pets. Since then numbers 1, 2 and 10 are all I do. (BTW I did not realize how much #1 kept things under control until we had a bad storm and went without power for 5 days)

1- Fleas spend only a small fraction of their life on your pet. Vacuum all carpet and upholstered surfaces daily. If you use a vacuum that takes bags change the bag every day. Remove the bag outdoors and place immediately in the outside garbage can. It is a small investment but no more expensive than buying bombs and powders. If you have a bagless vacuum empty the cup into the outdoor trash as well. Never let the vacuum get put away with debris in the bag/dirt cup.

2- Boil some orange and/or grapefruit peels. When the tea cools put it in a spray bottle. Spray your pets, all carpeting and all upholstery morning and evening. Your dogs coat will be beautifully shiny. BTW my border collie hated this and years later is still terrified of spray bottles.

3- Sprinkle Cedar bedding around where your dogs and cats sleep. (If you have small pets in cages they say NOT to use cedar bedding in their cages.)

4- Finely chop dried Rosemary in the blender until it is powdery. And rub this into your dog's coat.

5- If you have a gravel driveway allow no one to enter your home with their shoes on.

6- Tea tree oil works wonders whether it is in the dogs shampoo or if you apply a few drops to their coat.

7- When bathing your dog apply petroleum jelly around (not in) their ears and ears because the fleas tend to migrate to these areas as soon as your dog gets put in water.

8- If worse comes to worse sit outdoors and go thru your dogs coat to manually remove each flea you find. Deposit them into a glass jar or old cup that has water and a few drops of dish soap in it. The water will be slippery enough that they won't be able to move. It sucked doing this but when I found a flea in my 6 year old's hair I went ballistic.

9- If you must use a dip product --for our labs and border collie Front Line was much more effective than K9 Advantix. Grocery store dip is pointless and can be harmful to your dogs. If you do use a dip I beg of you to not let your kids cuddle with the dogs til the greasy spot between their shoulder blades is gone. BTW we haven't had to use any chemicals on our dogs since fall 2007 and have never seen a flea on them or in our house.

10- Rabbits and Guinea Pigs are provided proper accommodations to live outdoors. If you have small pets in the house guinea pigs, bunnies, hamsters, gerbils etc and you notice a flea problem you will probably notice those small pets have fleas too. Unfortunately you can't use flea products on such small animals[--at least 5 yrs ago you couldn't. Things may have changed since then] so we made a decision that summer that none of those types of pets live in our home. Personally I think this and daily vacuuming are the two biggest factors in us never seeing fleas again.

True story - my husband verbalizes that I go a little overboard with the sincere dislike for chemicals being used in our home, garden and lawn and he probably makes a good a point but I have found some safer alternatives that do work. In 2007, bless his heart because he was trying to help he bought some flea powder from a pet supply store. The sales person recommended sprinkling it on the carpet, letting it sit for a while then vacuuming it up. He did this and in the meantime our then 11 yr old brought his California bunny into the house and let him hop around for a while. The bunny began to act lethargic and in a couple hours died in my little boy's arms. Talk about gut-wrenching. After consoling our kids he threw the can of flea powder away. Nothing like that has been used here since.

Anyway I am sure I am a bit neurotic when it comes to what my kids are exposed to but I get to tell my getting too pretty 14 yr old daughter that I love her everyday so to me it is worth it. 11 yrs ago a Neurosurgeon prognosed that I would never again have that opportunity. Our girl got so so lucky...but sometimes I think momma and daddy were the luckiest off all.

Hopefully some of these ideas will help you or someone else out not only in the flea department but also in reducing the amount of poisons (that is what pesticides are) used in your homes, around your children and your pets.

If I went too far, left anyone here feeling that I disputed their use of spray or powders please accept my humble apology as that was in no way my intent.

 

[gg706]

Help, our lab has just gotten infested by fleas. We have them in our house. Wife and I this morning used the raid brand bombs but they don't seem to work. There still here. Has anyone had this problem before? How can I rid my dog and home of fleas? Our dog got his bath and we use the flea and tick treatment on his neck but he still has fleas. We just came back from petsmart. I spent $75 on spray,bombs,oatmeal soap. Etc. I hope this works. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you

I use Trifexis. I LOVE IT!!!!!! I give the dog a pill each month and NO fleas, worms, or heart worms, the only thing it is not effective on is ticks...so you still have to keep an eye out. In heavy flea infestations it could take a few months if you don't do anything else but Trifexis. As soon as the flea bites the dog it dies. It is HIGHLY effective! I would get started on Trifexis immediately and buy a jug of Ortho Home Defense and spray ALL the baseboards where the carpet and baseboard meet, cracks, crevices etc. I personally feel that if you DONT get the dogs on a monthly treatment the fleas WILL continue! I have never had any luck with topicals, collars, or shampoos.

 

[redhen]

The vet told me today to sprinkle borax in carpets and on furniture.