Desperate to resolve fleas

My poor pup and family have been through a miserable 6 weeks. I'm hoping someone can offer some advice of something I haven't tried yet as I await another call from my vet. Here's what we've tried so far. When we first discovered fleas we washed everything and I mean EVERYTHING. I even took apart my couch and washed the liners on high heat and vacuumed everything regularly. We started with flea baths and collars for both our Labrador and cat. When after a week we discovered them again we repeated and used pet armor drops on both animals per the suggestion of the vet. A couple weeks later our dog has fleas still. So now we decide to repeat flea bath, drops, collars and add flea bombing the house and spraying the yard with flea killer as well. This was all done on Saturday. Today while cuddling with my pup fleas are all over him. Just searching his fur I can pick off 5 at a time. I have no idea where to go from here. I feel like I've tried everything and my poor guy is so miserable. He's picked at his bites so much he's starting to lose his fur.

 

Hi and welcome from Hattie 8 years and our rescue boy Charlie 5 years. Sounds awful to have so many fleas but I wonder if they are cat fleas which are different to dog fleas. I have never seen a flea on either of my dogs as I do treat them accordingly. I don't know what pet armor drops are but could you use maybe Frontline or the equivalent which will kill fleas and ticks? Poor little pup biting and losing his fur is miserable Hope you get some treatment sorted out quickly.

 

Thank you! Yes they are the Walmart brand equivalent to frontline. My vet said there's no difference but gosh, four days later and he's infested again. I'm thinking of calling an exterminator but I'm not even sure their chemicals will work. I feel like we have some sort of mutant fleas that only grow stronger from what should kill them

 

Maybe you need to try a different brand and hope that helps. The Walmart brand is obviously not working if he is infested again 4 days after treatment. Are there any other animals around that he could be picking them up off?

 

Oh, how dreadful and miserable for you. I don't have any advice but to be honest this 'pet armour' doesn't sound all that effective. I would definitely be asking my vet for something else, and calling in the professional house cleaners. Very best of luck with it!

 

Sorry I meant to say apart from your other dog

 

Yeah the cat...but she's getting all the same treatments and is indoor. Other than that our yard is fenced and I haven't taken him on any play dates. I'd hate to spread this to anyone else. I'm hoping our vet will have another suggestion. I know there are pill treatments. Ghost, our dog, will eat anything so that's easy but the cat will be an adventure.

 

Other products that will be effective are Bravecto and Nexgard. These are both oral treatments (they come in the form of an edible chew that you just give to your dog like a treat). Bravecto is effective for 3 months against fleas. Nexgard is effective for 1 month but I think it might be faster acting. In the US both of these are prescription products so you will need to get them from your vet. They will be much more effective than the washes etc.

 

Hi, I spotted fleas..quite a few on our cat the other day. Did a bit of reading and advantage came up the best. 24hrs later...all gone. Think you can buy it in the US. It's the same treatment for cats and dogs..

 

Oh thank you!! 3 months without fleas sounds like a dream come true!

 

I'm sure you will get this sorted out as your vet should be able to prescribe something stronger to sort this infestation out How old is your puppy?

 

I call him a puppy but he really isn't anymore, just acts like it. He will be 2 in October.

 

It is important that you vacuum around the edges of your rooms, this is where the fleas tend to be and will jump on a passing dog. Way back there was a product that stopped fleas hatching out, not sure if it is still around.

 

Sorry, I don't have any advice, just wanted to stop by and say good luck and I hope you get it sorted soon. Sounds awful.

Oh, and I managed to start itching as soon as I ready your post! Haha

 

Haha trust me my husband and I have been doing the same! I'm surprised with all the fleas I'm finding that we haven't had any bites.

 

I think it was Einstein that said "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

The approach you have taken to date clearly isn't working. As the others have suggested, I think you need to try something different. We use Bravecto (the tablet approach that Rachael mentioned). A big advantage of the tablet approach is that it doesn't wash off (be it through swimming, rain, or licking). See what your vet says about this approach. Good luck.

 

Hi I completely feel for you having this problem! We had it and it was a nightmare.

There is a few things we tried that might help. Firstly I changed our girls flea treatment to advocate, we were usinging frontline and it seemed to stop having effect. Apparently fleas don't like salt so put this into the corners where you can't get properly into with your hoover. They also don't like lemon (apparently) so I boiled sliced lemon and sprayed my carpets with it. The only other thing I did was to combine with a flea comb as often as possible, when you get them of though put them in a dish of water with washing up liquid in...it stops them jumping back out.

I hope some of that helps ☺...I was at my wits end when we had them in our house.

 

I had a similar problem many years ago, as did many friends and neighbours, due to the hot dry weather we had which apparently increases the flea population. I ended up contacting my local authority who came and sprayed the house to eliminate all stages of the flea, eggs, larvae and adults. Solved the problem and I didn't see any flies for around a week Good luck solving the problem, it can be difficult

 

Have you ever heard of the Seresto collars? I don't know if they're available in USA under the same or another name. We started to use them for both the dogs and cats a couple of years ago and we find them excellent, will never use anything else. We are in an area that has a lot of ticks as well. Since using these collars, we've had no flea or tick problems at all.

 

Thanks everyone for all the advice! My vet finally called me back. They don't use the pills yet because they're new and they're waiting to see long term effects but they said if I purchased them online gets help me get one in the cat so that's nice. Ghost will scoop up pills easy so he's no problem. They basically said they recommended the pet armor as a cost savings (which flea bombing and yard spray later saved me nothing) with no actual experience. Lucky for other people now that I've had such a negative experience they're not recommending it anymore. Picking up a different treatment today the vet uses on her own pets- revolution? Hopefully it works well. I hadn't heard they don't like lemons. I use essential oils so I think I'll start diffusing lemon throughout the house. If all else fails at least it smells nice. I'm so impressed with how positive this community is. I'm also part of a forum for step moms and there's so much negativity. This is so refreshing!