HELP! We're being eaten alive!
 

I've lived at my house 12 years, I've had other pets (Yorkies included) and I've never had the problem with fleas I've had this year. This year, I don't know, the fleas have been God awful. I've never seen anything like it. Ziggy has his heartworm pills (which helps with fleas), his frontline (specifically for fleas), a flea spray (BioSpot) and I give his a bath with medicated shampoo once a week. HE STILL HAS FLEAS! And not just one or two, its like 20-30.

I have no idea what to do. I'm scared of putting more pesticides on him because I don't want his skin coming off, but I don't want him to get eaten up either. Are you guys having this problem? Are the fleas just bad everywhere this year? Its really got me concerned. Someone reccmmended undistilled vineagar, and that worked better than anything- but then he constanly reeked of vinegar.

Flea collars scare me because of the harsh pesticides in them. (Carbaryl Use In Flea Collars to Cease - Paw Nation)

Ziggy is ten months and he's a lighter colored yorkie. (Someone told me that the lighter colored dogs get fleas worse than darker colored dogs.) When Buttons was alive he never had a problem, but he had that blue skin too, so maybe that helped. I'm from SC, btw. So maybe its a regional thing?


Please help us before they eat us up!!!

what are you using in the house? are you vacuuming everyday and throwing the bag away? Everything that is cloth has to be washed and dried to kill the fleas in them. They live in anything soft. Good luck!!!

The good new is the flea season outside should be over for this year...the bad news is they can live a long time inside your house. We once had a bad problem with our schnauzer Fancy. I remember vacuuming everyday, and as Crickettsmom said, throwing that bag out right away. I understand that the eggs can lay dormant for months. We had to clean the carpet, vacuum the furniture, strip the beds....everything! I gave her way too many baths and I used Dawn. We finally got rid of them. The fleas were bad in VA this year too. :eek:

Have you tried the Comfortis pills for them? They work great for us.

That stuff is the best!!! We use it on Butterbean and my parents dogs and we are flea free! We live in Texas so you know we don't have very cold winters, they live forever here. We had a really bad problem before we started using it. We had tried everything and nothing seemed to work. Now we are flea free and sooooo happy!

What about treating the yard? Do they go outside to potty?

We use Comfortis too. It's supposed to be EPA and FDA approved. You may want to do a search, both YT and Web, for DE, the stuff they use in pool filters. It's supposed to pierce their exoskeleton and dry them out. Bad thing about DE is that it is a very fine powder. I have tried both chemically and naturally methods of flea control. I can PM you some links if you would like to look at them. It's always flea time in FL.

thanks
 

I've just finished vacuuming the house for the second time today. If I vacuum everyday, does anyone know how long it will take me to see results? hopefully I can start shampooing every couple of days too.

Comfortis? We gave him his frontline and sentinel a few days ago, can comfortis be used in addition to the frontline and sentinel or is it in place of one? Since sentinel is the heartworm preventitive that one should be okay right? What about the frontline? Is that still safe?

Can I buy it at Petco or is its something I need to get from my vet?

If you gave him Frontline don't give him another product until it's time
to give another application. You will over medicate him with pesticides.
How about giving him a bath in Dawn liquid for a couple of days.
It's been know to kill fleas on contact.
Poor baby and poor you.

We had a problem here a few years ago in Ohio with them. The vet told me it was because it was so wet that summer. We had a lot of rain and it was warm. The perfect environment for fleas to thrive in.

I had to vacuum, bathe, etc. Moved furniture and even vacuumed the couches. I also used some kind of spray that the vet gave me (can't remember the name). It seemed to take about a week for the major amount of them to be gone and about a month before I did not see any.

Good luck! I know they can be very annoying!

It can take couple months for your home to be rid of fleas due to new hatchings. Treat your yard, as, with weather turning cold, any new hatchlings will immediately latch on to your little ones and come in.

When vacuuming the house, be sure to move furniture and vac under couch/chair cushions. Also, open curtains/shades during the day and expose as much of your house to light as possible. Fleas like darkness. Take away as much of their refuge as you can and treat any remaining dark areas (like under furniture/beds) with your Biospot or a product like Flea Stoppers (Phydeaux: Flea Stoppers Powder - 5 lb).

Any fleas exposed to Frontline will immediately no longer be able to eat or mate, and therefor not be able to reproduce. Most of the fleas you are seeing jump on you are dying. Keep that in mind and take heart.

Good luck. Fleas have been bad here in SC as well. Even with the nights entering the low 50's, I have seen welts pop up from new fleas on my Rat Terrier while on walks.

To answer this part of your question from my experience.... We give Sentinel for flea/heartworm prevention on the 1st of the month and then a Comfortis pill on the 15th. This is safe to do. If you do Frontline (the topical) you don't want to do the Comfortis also.