Frontline has quit working...FLEEEEES!

[MotorSeven]

We went through this a few years ago and switched to Comfortis. But my vet does not recommend it anymore and is pushing a very expensive flea collar which we have not tried. So for over a year we have been using the Sentry Fiproguard Max with great results. That is until our daughter asked us to dog sit her lab...she lives in Florida.....apparently Florida has raised a genetically modified super flea that laughs at our flea treatment and then throws a block party. So now, we are overrun with fleas and the battle lines are forming, chemical warfare on our side, sheer numbers on their side.

Last week I bathed all the dogs in a flea shampoo....4 hours later they were all covered again. Re-bathed with an off brand dandruff shampoo which killed them all. Sprayed the house with a flea spray that is supposed to break the cycle, and applied Sentry Fiproguard max to the dogs and cats . That was last week and now they are all back with reinforcements. Sooooo, next will be to Borax the house and I have food grade Diatomaceous Earth[FONT=Arial, sans-serif] on the way(that is if the supply truck can break through the flea front)[/FONT]

While the battle rages, does anyone have any info on these new flea collars or any other flea preventative that works on these new super fleas?

 

[dave1949]

I Googled "Florida super fleas" and found a bunch of hits with various control suggestions. One idea was just burn the house down and start over. :laughing: Not really.

I hadn't heard of super fleas. Good luck and stay away from Maine.

 

[nybirdman]

Try Advantix....best I have found for our area.

 

[hosspuller]

This is a special case for me... I'm the one that gets bit before anyone else. Fleas are like a virus. You have to kill all sources of infection. AND kill the hidden source ... EGGS.

Doing a bath only killed the fleas on the animals. The fleas in their bedding or lounging spots reinfected your animals. You haven't even spoken about outside sources. Grass and fields are always sources.

My plan is always. spray the house, bedding & carpets. Use a killing spray plus a growth inhibitor for the eggs. Capstar for the dogs. (available for cats too) Frontline or Advantage for continued protection. Vacuum the house especially carpet & rugs. (seems to get them moving so the spray can kill them) Repeat house treatment in week. And again if fleas are still a problem. Remember the life cycle can be a few weeks or even a year! You have to get the eggs and larvae.

 

[Looking4new]

You could dust the animals with 'food grade' D-earth and dust the carpets and chairs/sofas, too. It must be food grade.

 

[MotorSeven]

One idea was just burn the house down and start over. :laughing: Not really.

Well hope you never get bedbugs...I have heard that some people did exactly that...burned their house down. Others just walked out of their houses and never returned......those things are insidious.

 

[MotorSeven]

This is a special case for me... I'm the one that gets bit before anyone else. Fleas are like a virus. You have to kill all sources of infection. AND kill the hidden source ... EGGS.

Doing a bath only killed the fleas on the animals. The fleas in their bedding or lounging spots reinfected your animals. You haven't even spoken about outside sources. Grass and fields are always sources.

My plan is always. spray the house, bedding & carpets. Use a killing spray plus a growth inhibitor for the eggs. Capstar for the dogs. (available for cats too) Frontline or Advantage for continued protection. Vacuum the house especially carpet & rugs. (seems to get them moving so the spray can kill them) Repeat house treatment in week. And again if fleas are still a problem. Remember the life cycle can be a few weeks or even a year! You have to get the eggs and larvae.

I am spraying the house again today. Yes we washed all bedding(I threw the two dog beds away), sprayed all rugs(hardwood floors) and cloth furniture. The outside is a problem....the house sits in the middle of a 70ac forrest....no lawn, all trees/leaves and the dogs have the run of it all. I guess I can perimeter spray the outside of the house but that seems kinda futile....no?

 

[MotorSeven]

You could dust the animals with 'food grade' D-earth and dust the carpets and chairs/sofas, too. It must be food grade.

It's on the way...2 day amazon shipping...10 lbs.

 

[Looking4new]

You could dust the animals with 'food grade' D-earth and dust the carpets and chairs/sofas, too. It must be food grade.
Don't forget when you vacuum, get rid of the bag immediately. The incinerators is your friend.

 

[dmccarty]

Yeah, the dog has fleas right now and she is getting Capstar. The dog is on either Frontline or Advantage. We use one or the other every so often. Over the weekend we put down 20 Mule team on the little bit of carpet we own. I hate carpet and these are just throw rugs so I would like to just throw them in the trash but I get over ruled.

Borax will work as well in the carpets. We could not find any quickly so we bought 20 Mule team. I used it years ago in FLA to remove fleas from the carpet. To get rid of the fleas you have to kill the eggs. There are some sprays that will do this but that stuff stunk years ago.

Good luck!
Dan

 

[MacLawn]

For ye hounds, cyats - get, just get I tell ye, a Soresto flea/tick collar! Done. Lasts 8 months, pet can chew on it it's so safe. BUT - the thing just works! Don't need subscription either, available at pet stores. Me vet put me onto it last summer. That's Soresto, remember, spelled backwards, that's Otseros (or is it Seresto? That'd be Otseres).

 

[dave1949]

Rick,
I asked Sharon to check with the dog "network" about these super fleas.

This is the suggestion for environment management:

Precor

Precor IGR Concentrate

On the dogs, the most people with similar issues suggested:

Capstar - Welcome to the CAPSTAR Homepage - Novartis Animal Health US, Inc.

They said that they needed to do repeated applications over time and even a year later still find a few fleas.

Another response:

When I could not get rid of fleas the end of last summer/early fall I purchased a can of this stuff: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B005YP8BTS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I took the vehicles to the car wash and vacuumed them out real good. Sprayed them down with this stuff...left the windows cracked. Let it dry over night....went back to the car wash and re-vacuumed. I spread food grade diatamaceous earth all over the few rugs we have in the house with my flour sifter to make sure I didn't miss anything. Let it sit over night and then vacuumed very thoroughly the next morning. Then I changed the bag in the vacuum cleaner and put the flea bag in a plastic bag and sealed it tight to make sure nothing could get out!

For the dog, did parastar plus and capstar and then followed up with a soresto collar and daily blowing to find any fleas that I may have missed. This went on for about 2 months before I got rid of the last of them I was also using a natural spray on her as well as the brewers yeast & garlic.. http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B001B4Z8FQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[Jstpssng]

I gave up on the Frontline years ago. I've never had much of a flea problem, but the advantik works much longer for ticks.
Good luck.

PS; Ditto on Dave 1949's first response.

 

[MotorSeven]

Thanks Dave...never heard of Precor. I read the instructions....what did you do about this:

"For control of active flea infestations, this product works best when combined with an adulticide such as Suspend SC or Demize E.C. which will help to provide quick knockdown of adult fleas. - See more at: http://www.domyownpestcontrol.com/precor-igr-concentrate-p-72.html?zmam=70093104&zmas=1&zmac=2&zmap=72&gclid=CKXpgIC7scACFUiGfgod8i8Aug#sthash.CyW8sKDk.dpuf"

 

[JakeBrake]

I've had good luck with K9advantix II for dogs and advantage II for cats applied once a month every month year round.

 

[dave1949]

Thanks Dave...never heard of Precor. I read the instructions....what did you do about this:

"For control of active flea infestations, this product works best when combined with an adulticide such as Suspend SC or Demize E.C. which will help to provide quick knockdown of adult fleas. - See more at: http://www.domyownpestcontrol.com/precor-igr-concentrate-p-72.html?zmam=70093104&zmas=1&zmac=2&zmap=72&gclid=CKXpgIC7scACFUiGfgod8i8Aug#sthash.CyW8sKDk.dpuf"

Those were methods given to Sharon from people with super fleas, she has internet connections with a lot of dog owners around the country. So, it's third-hand and I don't know anything about it really, just passing along possibly useful info. Maybe it leads to something useful, maybe not.

 

[jimpen]

For washing the dogs Ivory dish soap works well to kill fleas.

You might want to try boric acid powder to kill the fleas. It works on cockroaches by absorbing water after they walk through it.

 

[MacLawn]

Y'all don't believe me.

Get Seresto flea, tick collar. Done.

 

[randy41]

i've been using a flea comb on my cat and it seems to be keeping things under control. he has fleas every time i comb him (3 or 4 times a day). but the population isn't increasing and he's scratching himself much less than he did when i first woke up to the problem. he is a free range cat.
fleas are very difficult to control when you are dealing with more than one pet. i just have the one cat.
since fleas need a host to reproduce, if you control the adults on the pet then eventually their population in your home will diminish. the chemical companies can go scratch themselves and keep their overpriced crap.
ticks don't seem to be a big problem this year. internal parasites are another story.

 

[RobertBrown]

warning on New Seresto Flea and Tick collar - Page 1