WHAT IS IT with FLEAS and hot, hot heat combined with rain????
 

ARGHHH!!! I really, really hate those pesky little vermin!! Once again, we have fleas in my house! :( I first found them on Bella, my Yorkie......and she was on Frontline (the spray, so I'm thinking I must not have sprayed enough...dangit!!!) I sprayed her again, this time making sure to do a really good job, then check the cats. They were fine, though. (That's where I made the mistake I think...not spraying them RIGHT THEN AND THERE!!) The next few days, I found a few more on Bella, but they were definitely not thriving.....just biding their time til they kicked the bucket. Checked the cats....still ok. (Still did nothing! :rolleyes:) Tonight, low and behold, a flea on a cat!!!! Grrrrrr! I should have sprayed them that very first day. Soooooo, both kitties got sprayed tonight, much to their chagrin. Good lord, I hope we're done with this and soon! I know they have to be coming in on Bella from going outside. (There are several dogs in yards all around us...dogs who are outside all the time and don't appear to be very well taken care of. So now I'm even more unhappy about them.....barking through the night AND flea ridden mongrels to boot! Okay, maybe not mongrels, but still.....)

I had to vent.......fleas are mortal enemies after all! /shrug

Anyone else having this issue?? I swear this happens to us (even before Bella, when it was just the cats who are indoor only!) every year when it gets unbearabley hot and then we have a couple of downpours. The mosquitoes are bad enough!!!! I hate having to deal with the fleas too! :(

We have the same problem here in TN. The fleas are Awful!
I've been treating with Frontline, cats & dogs one and all and the vermin still keep coming! I finally called a pest control place to come out and treat the house, the yard and and my outside doggie run! They will return once a month for $35. Not a bad deal and it really helped!
Good luck:)

Here too. I've been watching for them on Roxie and the other day I spotted one. So I applied Advantage. Now her hair is all dried out and acting brittle. I really hate that stuff. Not much of a choice though. If you don't use it you get one mess of an infestation. I've tried all of the natural things and they just don't kill the things off. Maybe they do some but not the new ones, you have to kill those too. I've learned from past experience you can't just treat one animal in the house you have to do them all at the same time. My cats go outside and they crawl in the thick weedy areas so I know for sure they had fleas. I can't wait till there is a more simple sollution to these blood sucking parasites ewwwww!

We are having a bad flea year here, as well. I did some reading and it seems that fleas like hot and humid weather, so that is why the sudden increase. If you dust your carpet with Borax and sweep it down into the rug it will keep any eggs in the house from turning into adult fleas. It dries them out and they don't mature. Hope this helps.

I know!!! Bella's hair doesn't seem brittle, but the Frontline definitely makes her hair feel coarse or something....not silky soft like it normally is! And then you have to wait at least 2 days before they can have a bath!! (I am waiting more like 4....I want to be very very sure it "took"! But I CANNOT wait to get her hair clean and silky shiny again!)
I agree about the natural stuff.....in fact, my vet told me it would be a waste of time. He said that if those things work, it's more likely because they don't come into contact with fleas. I really wanted to believe they would work, but one thing is for sure.....the natural remedies are to ward off fleas and don't do anything to take care of them once they're there! I'll just stick with my Frontline.

I use frontline(the once a month drops) on my kiddo's too. I treat them when I see a flea, we are lucky that this area doesn't have a problem. I know that if I start seeing them--I will be out there with the spray from lowes treating the yard!!! Of course, hot humid weather is perfect for hatching more of the boogers out.

I think I'm going to take her into the groomer and get a puppy cut. I feel so bad for her. She keeps scratching her shoulders. Maybe I need to try frontline. I think she had an allergic reation to the Advantage!

I was so worried about the hair being brittle and seemed to be either breaking or coming out so we went off to the vet today. The vet thinks she has some allergies or it could have been a reaction to the Advantage. She put her on some meds to calm the itchies and will recheck the situation next week when we go back for shots. She seemed much happier this afternoon and has calmed down on scratching. Other than that she checked out pretty healthy.

Oh, poor thing! To be honest, I was wondering about her hair being brittle afterward....that just seemed odd to me, but I didn't really know if it was something I should say or not. I'm so glad you took her to the vet!! AND that she doesn't seem to be so itchy not too! Good news!! :)

I don't think it was falling out now. I think her skin was just irritated she was scratching and either breaking it off or pulling it out. It was hard to tell which one was happening. She doesn't have bald spots though so probably breaking it off. After one dose of medicine to calm it all down she had a much better night. I see no more hair clumps at all now. So she must have been causing it from scratching. I think she already had something going on (like allergies) and a couple of flea bites and the flea medicine just aggravated the whole thing. We seem to be on the right road now but not sure what I"m going to do for a flea preventitive because they really do get bad here. We've had a pretty rainy summer which isn't helping any. I will be discussing this with my vet next week.