- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Success after IF
muppet.fan
member
Pet owners re: fleas
muppet.fan
member
Ugh. We have two indoor-only cats and have never dealt with fleas. But there's been a stray cat hanging around outside the last month or so and we can only guess they somehow got inside from him because we noticed one of our cats scratching last night and DH found a couple dead fleas in his white fur.
We have a vet appt on Saturday so I'm guessing we'll get the Advantage/Front Line treatments. I'm washing and vacuuming everything today.
But any suggestions for using any other products inside that won't affect DD? I hate bugs....and I'm itching like crazy just thinking about fleas!
After 20 months, 3 Clomid cycles and 4 IUI cycles, IVF #1 with ICSI = BFP!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Pet owners re: fleas
If you use the frontline or advantage that should also take care of the fleas in the house. The medicine spreads to the other fleas and kills them, our cats are indoor as well and the one time they got fleas all it took was one treatment of frontline on each of their backs to rid our home of fleas.
Vacuum and wash as necessary and you should be fine.
Wash as much as you can on hot water. Also, empty the vacuum frequently if you have bagless. Rinse out the container and filter as soon as you've finished. They will hold on and multiply!
I assume you've already washed your cats? After cleaning, you may want to give them another quick dip. The fleas will jump off the animals while they are getting bathed, find somewhere to hide, and jump back on when you start cleaning and moving stuff around. They are a PITA!
We've only had an issue with fleas one time, and it was horrible! We wound up just bombing our whole house--not something you want to do!! It sounds like your situation isn't quite so bad, so I think just taking care of it like this should be fine!
We didn't have any problems with the fleas hanging out in out house, just on the dog and frontline took care of that in about 2 months (one good cleaning got rid of them and had one reoccurance after 3 weeks). I have had friends who had to have terminix come in since the fleas kept coming back.
Be on the lookout for worms! My dog got fleas and ended up with a bad case of worms from the fleas. they look like little pieces of rice that accumulate where ever the animals sleep.
Thanks, ladies! I told DH you'd have answers for us!
It's good to know that the treatment on the cats should take care of any in the home too. It just figures that both cats love to sleep on the chair we have in the nursery and on the quilts/blankets we use during floor time.
I don't know about use on cats (only ever had dogs) but the Adams products in the blue bottle are great. Sometimes Maggie ends up with a flea or 2 on here from the yard even though she's on Frontline and so we spray her with the Adams as well - it also helps with mosquitos.
They also have a yard spray DH uses in the yards because it seems as though one of the neighbors has flea issues - even though neither side fesses up to it. But they have to come from somewhere!
For the yard spray, it's safe after it has dried. Don't know about the animal spray on animals around children though.
From a vet: Clean your house really well (vacuum in multiple directions daily at first (furniture included), wash all bedding in hot water, etc). You should be able to go ahead and buy Frontline or Advantage (both are great products) without having a vet appointment. You will need to treat for at least 3-4 months to break the lifecycle in the house (ie. eggs hatching out, larvae developing into adults, etc). If your cats are going outside, they need to be on a preventative monthly. If your house is not horribly infested, than you don't need to do any flea bombs, etc.
The frontline and advantage take about 24 hours to kill the adult fleas. You can also get a pill called Capstar to give the cats and that will kill all of the adult fleas on them within about 2 hours. I will sometimes send home a few doses of this medicine for owners to give every few days for the first 2 weeks if they are having a bad infestation.
Check out veterinarypartner.com for more information on fleas.
Ughh...how annoying. My cat got fleas once while we were on vacation. DH and I weren't married yet and him and my bro would go to my parents house to feed the cat. Well, 2 weeks later, for unexplained reasons (seriously, niether one of them confessed to letting the cat out or anything!) my 8 year old cat had fleas. Never had fleas before though!
The vet gave me frontline or something. It was a monthly treatment. He said not to restrict the from going places throughout the house because he cat's body temperature is warm (warmer than ours too), so the fleas will jump on the cat to stay warm and die. So I guess it goes around the house collecting fleas lol. They cleared up totally after about a week that I first put the stuff on him.