Natural Flea Prevention

[Guest krisandzoo]

It's that lovely time of year again - when the bugs love to make meals of our favorite furry friends and sometimes people, too. I've been eliminating as many chemicals in my life from foods, cleaning products, cat litters etc for awhile now. I've been wondering if I should do the same for my pets' flea meds.

I've used Sentry natural defense that uses things like essential oils. I like the idea of this but wonder how well it will work when warmer months are here.

Has anyone out there opted for natural flea prevention? Where do I go for more information? I don't want to put my guys at risk for fleas and ticks but would love to eliminate anything that isn't safe for human skin....if it's not safe for mine than why is it for theirs? Help please.

[Batmom]

Frontline and Advantage type products are as good as it gets -- TEENSY amount of safe insecticide with a big impact.

 

Not only teensy, but of course far less than you'll have to use if you get an infestation.

 

The "natural" products don't work -- old wives' tales and marketing garbage. If you want to kill bugs, you need insecticide.

Edited May 13, 2008 by Batmom

[Guest JudiK]

My Bookie gets really hyper for about 24 hours after I Frontline her. Last year I went the all natural route - bought garlic biscuits and fed them every day. They were supposed to work for fleas, I'm not sure whether they did - but there are plenty of ticks here too and I don't think there is anything natural that gets rid of them. We live in the woods on an ancient deer-path. I grew very weary of picking ticks off of my dogs and expected that I would soon be picking them off of my cats and me!! My all natural foray lasted for about two months... maybe less.

[Guest sheila]

Frontline and Advantage type products are as good as it gets -- TEENSY amount of safe insecticide with a big impact.

 

Not only teensy, but of course far less than you'll have to use if you get an infestation.

 

The "natural" products don't work -- old wives' tales and marketing garbage. If you want to kill bugs, you need insecticide.

exactly! An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure IMO

[Guest longdogs]

Remember too that 'natural' preventatives like garlic that probably won't work are often more toxic than the products that do.

[greyhoundlady]

I have to agree - the natural way does not work at killing the blasted insects. I have done lots of research to find alternate methods. The natural herb essence repellents will only, at best, repel - they don't kill the bug. And no guarantee it will even do that. If you have a determined pest - flea/tick - it will still lock on and the only way to kill it is with the dreaded insecticide. I use Frontline Plus but very sparingly. I try to go for every 6 weeks as it is supposed to kill fleas up to 3 months and ticks up to 1 month. Then in the Dec/Jan/Feb months I do nothing at all. I also check the greys constantly. Of course, it depends on where you live and how much the dogs enter the 'wild'.

 

I know just how you feel about putting insecticide stuff on the dogs. Don't like doing it either. However, once I found a tick on me and was ready to apply the Frontline to myself! Oh, how I despise those things!

[Xan]

I was told that, because greys have so little body fat, and specifically subcutaneous fat (right under the skin), that it takes about 1/2 the labeled dosage of spot on insecticides. I've used that kind of dose in an area with LOTS of ticks, and it did work, so that's what I'd go with personally (luckily, I'm now in an area I don't have to use anything! The only advantage to this climate! )