Help, Odie and flea advice.

I need some ideas advice on my Odie problem.

This year the flea are the worse I think I have ever seen. I have always used Frontline, sense it can out, never a problem. But this year Frontline isn't getting the job done. For the first time in years my dogs are wearing flea collars with the Frontline, plus flea spray now and again. For the other dogs, it's been working, but with Odie...not so much.

With Odie, I have to spray him everyday, he gets baths all the time now and he's still not happy. I also found out that my husband went and bought some Bio-Spot and put that on him too, on top of the Frontline.

He now runs and hides when he see me coming with the spray and I have to drag/carry him to the bath, he hates it so much. We treated the yard around the house, with what we could. Because of the Chicken, ducks etc, we have to watch what we use.

I don't know what else to do. Any idea? The fleas are just so bad around here. I walked outside the other day, with white socks on, just to see. The socks where not white, after a few seconds, they where more black, covered with fleas.

I'm thinking it's because of his fur, it's 3" long and thick thick thick fur. I do trim him ever summer, but this year I'm thinking about just shaving it down to a buzz cut. He's going to look bad, cause I'm not good at the cutting job, but if it helps??? Could it be that the flea stuff just doesn't work as well with long thick hair. When I put it on, I massage it in, deep as can be.

Here's Odie, BTW for those that don't know who he is. Wet from a bath, as you can see, he's not happy about that. :)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...DSCF004011.jpg

We thankfully have gotten rid of our fleas and hope to never get them again.

We used natural things from this site: http://www.healthy-dogs.net/fleas.htm


Cheap and it worked.
Simba seems to get fleas worse too.. he has longer fur than the girls do.

Poor baby ODIE...:( I'd be upset too...I hope you figure something out soon. XOXO's to ODIE. We've always used K9 Advantix, and we're good here. But, I've heard that Frontline is better, so I don't know what to tell you.

Thanks for the link, Kay, I'll give some of then a try. I'll try anything at this point. I really don't want to shave him bald, he'll look so bad, plus he HATES HATES the sound of the trimmer. So it's going to be a job and stress him out.

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We've always used K9 Advantix

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Yeah we have used that too...........same problem, helps with the fleas, but not enough for my liking. I think it because I live in Florida, no real winter to kill off the fleas, so we get them really bad here. :eek:

You are going to have to move to Wisconsin. I've never seen a flea outside and have only seen a few on actual animals. I rescue strays all the time and they never have fleas. I never understood how bad fleas could get in other areas. Sorry I don't have much advice. We use Hartz for ticks but I wouldn't want to use that if you have all sorts of other animals around. I hear many flea repellants don't kill flea eggs. Maybe you could look for something that kills the eggs.

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Originally posted by Fox-Gal


Yeah we have used that too...........same problem, helps with the fleas, but not enough for my liking. I think it because I live in Florida, no real winter to kill off the fleas, so we get them really bad here. :eek:

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I wish I could help you out. I live in FL too but have never really had a problem with fleas. My 2 use K9 Advantix as well and I am pleased with the results. You said you have chickens and ducks...don't they get fleas??? I was thinking maybe they had the fleas on them and since they don't get flea treatment, maybe that's why you have the problem. I don't know if this is so but it's what I was thinking.

I'm not sure if birds can get them (though I don't recall hearing that they do), but I know that cats can be one of the worst flea carriers among animals. Don't you have ferals around where you live? That could be why it's such a constant battle for you too. When I lived in southern MO, we struggled with fleas on the collies a lot too. We had a neighbor with at least 30 or 40 cats that lived outside around his house and strayed all over, and I'm sure that was a big producer of our problem too (Very little animal containment law enforcement there).

The best luck we had was with Advantage. We got it the year it came out and it was the first time we could really get rid of the fleas on the dogs. But we moved to MN that year, and I have never seen a flea since. In MO, we had to constantly flea bomb the house, spray the yard, flea dip/bathe the dogs, as well as flea repellents and so on on the dogs. They had cedar shaving stuffed beds because cedar tends to repel fleas. But unfortunately, no matter what we did it was always a struggle, and a very frustrating and expensive one. What made it doubly worse was that Willie had a flea allergy and every summer had big oozing sores on him from flea bites :(.

Have you tried Revolution? I've had excellent results with it for my cats and dogs. Even cleared up my daughter's house when the pest control guy couldn't.

Mary

maybe your house is infested too. You should buy one of those flea "bombs" and make sure you wash all the sofa coverings and change the vacumn bag often!

I really personally think that fleas can get used to a certain treatment. I used advantage for years & years since it first came out & now this year the fleas are not terrible but they are there. They have never been there before. So I switched to Frontline & thats keeping them away.

I suggest switching to another reputable brand like advantage, frontline plus (if you used just frontline before), revolution or advatix (but advatix can be bad for cats I don't reccomend it for homes with cats).

The important part is to make sure NOT to mix different brands like you have been doing. I would not add anymore chemicles to your dogs system, wait until he is due for his next dose of frontline (1 month form when you applied it) and give him a good bath before applying something else.

Have you tried treating your yard? That can help a bit too. Just make sure your dogs stay out of the area for at least 24 hours (or whatever the product reccomends, some types you should wait until a rain)

good luck, fleas are no fun thats for sure

I'm in California, same problems. I still battle flea problems every year and did a post here asking for some advice after one of my dogs became sensative to just about all topical flea products, so I can't help much with that. I can say that, I know you don't want to shave him but you might want to consider it. I shave Bear (aussie/pyranees??? mix) during the summer. I tried putting the topical flea product (different brands) on him and it didn't help, his fur was to thick and long. The first time I shaved him was when we adopted him (he was about 5 yrs and had probably never seen a bath much less a groomer). He hid in a corner and wouldn't come out. That was about 3 years ago, he now actually likes being shaved, he's much cooler and his coat is easier to manage during the summer, and the topical flea treatment worked. He unfortunately is the dog that developed the allergies to the topical flea treatments so I'm still trying to figure out what to do now, but I couldn't imagine dealing with fleas and his natural coat. So even though you don't want him shaved you might want to consider it. If it works it would mean less pesticides on him and fewer baths which I'm sure he won't mind.....

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Originally posted by pnance
I can say that, I know you don't want to shave him but you might want to consider it. I shave Bear (aussie/pyranees??? mix) during the summer.

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A dog with an undercoat (aussie, pyranese, shep., husky, etc) should not be saved, unless for medical reasons. The reason is the undercoat is an insulator, keeping the dog cooler in warm weather & warmer in cooler weather.

I confess I hadn't heard that before. The first time we shaved him we had to, we'd just gotten him from our neighbor who shouldn't have dogs, his fur was so matted it was creating soars, and his skin when you got through the mats was black with fleas. The next summer I didn't plan on shaving him, but by mid summer he was moppy and always panting. We gave him a summer cut and he was up and running with the rest of the dogs, so I usually try to get him cut at least 1-2 times per summer and he seems to be much more active and less hot than when he has his full coat.

Thanks for the idea/advice.

I'm going to check into that about birds (chickens) and fleas, sense we have so many. Also yes I do have a lot of feral around here, so that could add to it some.

We do, do the house often, it just part of regular house keeping around here. You have to when you have pets. We also have treated the yard, but we can't treat with any chemical's, because of the ducks etc that run around our yard, so we just 7-dust, it's the best we can do.

So, no shaving Odie.........wont he be happy about that, even thought he is still getting a trim. :D

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I really personally think that fleas can get used to a certain treatment

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I always wondered about that, I even asked the Vet once, but never did get a answer.

But once it stops raining around here, Odie is going to get a bath, AGAIN, and trimed. Odie have to gets baths outside, his hair clogs the drains, plus he hates inside. Then I think I'll change flea control and see it that helps, just by changing. I'm also going to add some garlic to their food in hope that helps also.

If not, Odie wont be bald..........but I will from pulling my hair out!!!

In Washington i had Bad flea problems . But here in Montana we have a nice cold winter to kill them off. So only when my daughter brought Moose over here in spring we had them for that year only. We just have to worry about deer ticks if we take any one out of the yard.