WWYD about fleas?

rachann28

Apparently fleas are bad this summer in central Texas, even people who don't let their dogs outside other than to go potty have them this summer. Living with the boyfriends parents hasn't been easy, but it hasn't been the worst. His mom is into the all natural, holistic things, so when our dog Taylor got fleas a few MONTHS ago, she was doing all the natural things...salt baths, coconut oil, apple cider vinegar in his water, ect. But nothing has worked so far. Taylor has a skin condition so a lot of the harsh flea medicines don't work on him anyways, so I'll give her that...but I KNOW these fleas are in the house. I had animals growing up, and we would buy the flea/bug foggers for the house, do it in the mornings, and come back that night and they'd be dead, vacuum a bit, and wham-bam-thankyama'am! they'd be gone. Other than completely refusing to believe me that there are fleas IN the house, she doesn't want to use a fogger or pest control spray. I'm thankful she's worried about me being around chemicals, because believe me so am I, but I'm more worried about fleas hopping onto my baby when it's here. How should I try and convince her there are fleas in this house and how would you go about killing them? I know they are breeding in here, because I see fleas of all different sizes. I'm getting to annoyed of picking them off of the dog and them hopping on to me. I just want them all dead!

TIA ladies! 

puppy_love6969

Why do you need to convince her?? Can't she SEE them? Pick one up and show her lol. I worked as a Vet Tech and the best and more effective way is to treat the animals with a Veterinary Prescribed topical flea treament. I live in Canada, I don't know what you have down there but we use Advantage. You don't need to treat the house when you use this product, only the animals. One treatment and bye bye fleas! Ew they are annoying, good luck!!

rachann28

I've shown her dead ones I pick off the dog and kill and she just goes "oh they're dead" -__- my dog is allergic to Advantage unfortunately, he gets a rash and has a lot of bare skin on his tummy so he bleeds and its almost worse than fleas, thats why I want to treat the house. The natural baths would maybe work if after he got out he didn't rub all over the carpet and get more. They've tried two other kids of the topical stuff and he's allergic to all of them. Poor pup gets a rash and welts like crazy

SunshineShades

We had a bad flea problem a few years ago. We flea treated with Revolution, borrowed my FIL industrial carpet steam cleaner and did the carpet and furniture, and washed all our bedding and dogs bedding.

I then bought a flea comb (like a lice comb for dogs). Every other day I sat on our balcony and used the comb on the dogs. I filled a cup with water and dish soap, any time I picked up a flea or egg I dipped the comb into the water... this kills the fleas.

You can also bath your dog in Dish soap I have heard.

To attempt to prove to her there are fleas you can try putting a shallow bowl of water with dish soap (I think it was dish soap) under a light at night time. apparently it is supposed to attract the fleas, they jump in the bowl and then died.

rockinmommy

I HATE FLEAS!! I would move, but that's me.

 

I would do something to take care of them, and not tell her, especially if I knew she wouldn't like it.

BarrysBride05

I am sorry you are having to deal with this. . .fleas combined with m/s were the cause for me to break down crying this pregnancy.  

I second the Borax treatment for carpet. It is very inexpensive and near the laundry detergent.

We also purchased a flea beacon https://happyjackinc.com/product/flea-beacon/
It now stays on at all times. We moved it from room to room until we had them stop jumping on us.

Also, we washed all rugs on hot water and did not place them back until we knew the problem was resolved.

You may want to try bathing the dog(s)  in Dawn dish detergent mixed with baby shampoo (to prevent stripping so much oil from its skin).

I have also heard of using pinesol to mop all hard floor surfaces, but have not tried it.

There are natural sprays that exist as well.

ETA: I am honestly not sure how to convince her if she is not getting bitten.

pillowass

Our vet gave us an oral flea medication called Comfortis. It's a pill that you are supposed to administer once a month and it has really worked well for us. Fleas are really bad this summer, so we end up giving our dog the medication every couple of weeks.

As for the house, vacuuming obsessively for a week or so seems to do the trick for us. We don't let our dog on the furniture so we usually don't have issues with linens, etc. 

drpayne

I'm in TX too and one of the girls in my prenatal yoga class just had typhus.  It is a big problem this year.  That is NOT something you want to deal with while pregnant or with kids around. I'm not crazy about using a bunch of chemicals but in this case, I'd use whatever I needed to in order to get rid of them as quickly as possible. 

ally2011

allierhiana1:

I JUST went through this.  It took me 4 weeks to get rid of the fleas in my house.

We used Borax, put it on all of the carpeting (we had to do this process twice), let it sit for about 12 hours and vaccumed it up.  Washed ALL of the bedding, etc  I then put a flea collar and Frontline Plus on the dog.  

It needs to be treated, otherwise you will end up with millions of fleas. 

Did you run that by your vet?  I don't think you are supposed to use a flea collar and Frontline at the same time.  A lot of the flea collars have really bad side effects, and I am not sure how those chemicals would interact with Frontline.  We use Frontline by itself and it is great.   

nattn

pillowass:

Our vet gave us an oral flea medication called Comfortis. It's a pill that you are supposed to administer once a month and it has really worked well for us. Fleas are really bad this summer, so we end up giving our dog the medication every couple of weeks.

As for the house, vacuuming obsessively for a week or so seems to do the trick for us. We don't let our dog on the furniture so we usually don't have issues with linens, etc. 

I'm a vet tech, also in TX. I strongly recommend Comfortis, especially for dogs that have issues with topical treatments like frontline and advantage. I also like that I don't have to worry about getting it on myself, the furniture, or anywhere else the dogs go that I might get second hand exposure. 

If you stay on top of giving your dog the Comfortis every month, he will be acting as flea control for the house as well because all the fleas that get on him will die.

Since it's not your house, I don't know how much you more you can do other than vacuum a lot. You might be able to try one of the natural remedies, but I don't think you can use a spray, bomb, or anything along those lines without permission, which it doesn't sund like you're going to get. 

skibi83

I was just looking it up and tempo is commonly used around the buildings of dairy units so that might help if you spray that around the outside of the house to help with that area and I would try the borax treatment. Tempo is I believe pretty non-toxic and it will take care of not only the fleas, but also anything else that's creepy crawly. That is if the inlaws will let you use it.

persephonerose

If topical products bother your pup's skin condition you could ask for a product like we use, Trifexis. Its a pill the dog eats and it goes into the blood stream and prevents fleas, ticks, heartworm. The nice thing is if the flea bites the dog it kills the flea. This means any fleas in the house that decide to snack on your pup will die. She can be holistic all she wants but it is your dog and fleas can add to his/her skin issue if they are rampant. We are in Austin and have used Trifexis all year and even after laying outside in the yard we are not having any flea issues.