Thank you.

Cutting the hair is not going to keep the fleas away you need to use a preventive like Frointline or Advantix

I don't know how she did it but if you use a flea comb you can catch the fleas in the flea comb. As you get them put the fur and fleas in a bowl of soapy water. That will work for about and hour as more will jump on quickly.

UPDATE: ok since I started this thread both my Yorkie & Maltese no longer scratch themselves silly & free of fleas.

The solution was Trifexis. It works from the inside out & you don't have to hassle of parting their hair making a mess plus it also prevents heart worms. Yes they ain't cheap about $30 for each pill at your local highway robbery Vet :eek: ;) :)

No worries, you'll find several places online that will not only sell them to you without a prescription which will also save you $$$ on a Vet visit but also for a fraction of the price. They are ridiculous cheap online for those who live in the east coast can easily afford to give them year around. I found several online that sells them in a pack of 6 for about $55 free shipping too. For me here in Ca I just give 1 pill during the warm months like June-Oct.

As for shaving their coat doesn't keep the fleas away? yes BUT when mine had a lot in the beginning I was able to catch them all and kill them when I shaved mine to the skin exposing all the nasty critters.

IMHO, I wouldn't use Triflexis due to toxicity issues in small dogs.

Also, if you're keeping their hair very short, you'll need to use sunscreen to prevent skin cancer, as their hair protects them but without it they are at risk.

ETA: Fleas live in the house and yard, and jump on the pet for a meal, then jump off and back into the carpet. Vacuum more, diatomaceous earth is good for killing them in the yard and house.

OP, are you aware of the large number of dogs that have died because of Trifexis?

Please don't give them trifexis it's has been linked to many many dog deaths and even more very sick dogs. It's not worth the risk.

Yes maybe so but you can say the same for Frontline, Advantix & other topicals from the reviews on Amazon...there are hundreds & hundreds of 1 star review from customers with nightmarish results from Frontline (491) to be exact. Just like everything else, some had grave results with Trifexis but not nearly as much as Frontline. And by ten folds there are many happy and successful use of Trifexis.

I'm more afraid of taking mine to Vet for dental cleaning as I've also heard hundreds of stories about their dogs not waking up from anesthesia but what are you going to do? not get their teeth clean and let them suffer in discomfort or pain?

As for Trifexis, I do appreciate all your advise and reconsider and perhaps will not give it to them unless the fleas are really bad. Guess I'll have to do a little more research like asking other yorkie owners, asking any vet I meet, etc before I give it to them at the drop of a hat like last year.

Trifexis is BAD...lots of deaths related to Trifexis. People HERE on YT have lost their dog because of using Trifexis. There are plenty of other flea preventatives out there that are safer to use.

You don't need a prescription for flea medication. You can get flea medication at Petco, Petsmart and many other places OTC. You WILL need a prescription for Heart Worm pills though. I tried to order Revolution(HW and flea preventative) off Petmeds last year and my vet refused to write a script for me, even though I'd paid for a HW test that my dog had tested negative on. Petmeds wouldn't sell me the Revolution because they didn't have proof that my dogs were HW tested....so I had to buy HW from my vet instead.

If you are giving Trifexis, or Sentinal or Revolution or anything that is a flea med/HW combo, you will need to get your dog HW tested first. If your dog has HW, the HW preventative will kill your dog...that is why companies are so stringent about selling HW pills OTC without proof that you've done a HW test.

Trifexis is a HW and flea preventative. Therefore, you have to give it on a monthly basis...not just periodically over the summer when your dog has fleas. If you don't give it every month and your dog gets bit by a mosquito and gets heartworm and then you decide to give the pill again, it will kill your dog.

As far as the flea thing goes, the only way to get rid of fleas is to combat it from every angle...treat your yard, treat your house and treat ALL of your pets. Washing in flea shampoo or dawn dishsoap is only a temporary solution....like as long as the bath lasts. Picking them off is only a temporary solution. First of all, it doesn't kill the flea eggs on your pet, so more will just hatch. Also... if the fleas are in your house or your yard, they will just jump right back on your dog... I use a product called "Knockout" by Virbac on my house. It is available at my vet clinic for $20 a bottle. I also treat my yard with a pesticide and I use a flea/HW combo. Last year, I used Sentinal and Frontline. I used both because Sentinal will only stop the egg production, so the fleas can still jump on and bite your dog. Frontline is supposed to kill the adults as well.

Shaving your dog will help you SEE the fleas, but it won't do much good for getting rid of the fleas. My dads cocker is shaved with white hair and he got fleas and they were crawling all over him. They will still live on your animal, regardless, unless you treat for it.

Lastly, your dog is/was itching and all scabby because he's major allergy to fleas. My older dog is too. Some animals tolerate fleas better than others. They can have a few on them and you may not even know, but when my dog gets one flea on him , you'd think he's dying. He is miserable...and the flea allergy can happen from just one bite and it can last for a few weeks after they are bit!!

For some reason, it seems like yorkies, in general, are more sensitive to fleas than other dogs. When my dogs had fleas(even when they were getting treated with Sentinal and Frontline), I was spraying pet hydrocortizone spray on them, giving them benadryl and at one point, my vet even put my older pup on Prednisone...and I was bathing them with natural flea shampoo and they still were itching. I had to cover them with clothes so they wouldn't chew themselves raw.

I've also theorized that our breed is more susceptible to fleas than some other breeds because our dogs are so close to the ground and their belly's are exposed. Hair or no hair, our little guys are often buried up to their belly's when they step in the grass so it's not too difficult for the fleas to jump on them. I've only ever found 1-2 fleas on my boys at a time so I seriously think they were bringing them in off the grass.

Here are a few facts about fleas.... for each flea you find, there are at least 50 more in your house that you aren't finding. A female can lay up to 40 eggs in ONE DAY and they hatch between 5 and 15 days and flea larva can lay dormant for many months until they find a suitable host(your dog) to latch onto.


Hope this helps!! I've become fairly well versed in fleas since I battled so hard with them last year. It's EXPENSIVE, time consuming and a big pain in the butt, but if you aren't thorough, it's just going to cost you more money and your pet more misery in the long run.

If you look up Trifexis you will find that there are a lot of law suits because of deaths as well as warnings about it's toxic nature. While all flea treatments have a certain amount of risk this one seems to far outreach the boundaries of safety where flea treatments are concerned.

Frontlline and Advantage II are the leaders in flea treatment with the least amount of side effects. Always make sure you are using the right weight range and the right category for your pet.

You can't go by just those reviews we have had a member on here lose there dog to it and a few members who have had dogs get very very sick from it. Search it on Google and in this site. Anasteshia only has a 1% chance of killing a dog last time I looked. If you get the blood work before hand and use the right protocol it's extremely safe. Not taking care of dental work and bad teeth can cause organ problems.

I can't tell you where I read it now because it was a couple of years ago but a study was done by a group of veterinarians on the bad reactions that some animals have had to topical flea medications. It was found that in the majority of cases the reason for problems was either the wrong weight class of product was used or cat product was used on a dog or the other way around. Basically it was owner error. Many of these miscalculations result in overdose of the pet.

It is sad but few people bother to read directions not just on this subject but many others.

If you read actual studies (not customer reviews) you will see that Trifexis and several other brands have far more deaths and illnesses than the other major brands.