Fleas, fleas, freakin fleas!

[OBIO]

At our old house, our dogs never had a single flea on them....and they spent plenty of time outside with us. The yard simply did not harbor fleas. At our new place....fleas are present...and our dogs have them now. Now major infestations, just enough to drive them (and us) a bit nuts. Now I know there are a ton of flea shampoos, flea dips, flies drops and the like on the market....but I don't want to use any of those on my dogs. I wouldn't apply toxic pesticides to my own skin, and definitely won't be applying it to my dogs' skin.

So, I did some research into non-toxic, natural flea killers and controllers. And boy are there a lot of them out there.....and all of them are tons cheaper than the commercial flea products. The one I just used is a mix of vinegar and water to spritz the dogs....the vinegar will kill the fleas on the dogs almost instantly and the residual smell will work to keep new fleas from taking up residence. The down side....now my dogs smell like a Ceasar salad! I can live with that.

Of course, this is not a one-time application...will have to give them a spritzing once a week or so...but given the fact that I can buy a jug of vinegar for 3 bucks...and that one gallon jug of vinegar will treat both dogs for a year....I will be saving about $120 a year (per dog) over the monthly flea application things...and I will not be exposing my dogs to the toxic...and cancer causing...chemicals in the commercial flea treatments...which are coming under sharper scrutiny by the EPA due to alarming number of dogs and cats whose deaths have been attributed to those treatments...over 44 thousand pet deaths associated with the flea treatments in the last few years alone.

Oh...another step in the vinegar flea control program.....adding 1 teaspoon of vinegar to 3 cups of water and using that as the dogs' drinking water. Of course, they will get more than 3 cups of water daily....that is just the ratio used. The vinegar (apple cider vinegar by the way) will boost their immune system, improve their skin and coat, reduce the tear stains that our Hazel gets in the corners of her eyes, and will help keep the fleas (and ticks, and mites, and chiggers) from feasting on the blood of our doggies.

This treatment is also safe for cats and will help reduce the smell of their urine to boot.

OBIO

[Willy]

I had an indoor flea infestation once. I took a pan of soapy water, hung a night light about 10" above that and left it on overnight for a few nights. The warmth of the light gets the fleas to jump up towards it and they fall down into the soapy water and drown. It was pretty effective at getting rid of them.

Once, I got a puppy that was so infested with fleas, I named him Fleabus.

[Willy]

Mrs Willy says to get some brewers yeast and garlic tablets for the dogs. You can get them at pet stores.

[magoo]

We had read that camomille tea is a good flea deterent. Okay. Brewed some, let it cool, spritzed it on the dogs for a couple of weeks, seemed to work fine. We had a big bed of the stuff growing out in the garden, some friends had given us a small plant...it went monster. We could make all the anti-flea camomile we wanted for free.
Then something interesting happened. Our two dogs began laying in the camomile. I shoo'ed them out the first time I saw them in there, but the camomile just sprang back as if there had been no weight on it. Tough, resilient plants. After awhile they'd just hang out in the camomile when nothing of doggie interest was happening. Friend and nieghbours would comment favourably about our minty smelling dogs, and the fleas never showed again, even after we quit spraying tea in liu of the dogs connect-the-dots self treatment.

Smart animals.

Err..dogs. Not fleas.

PS...if anyone decides to try growing their own camomile, keep it totally isolated from other plants. The stuff spread wickedly fast, right under ground.

[kilo delta]

Mrs Willy says to get some brewers yeast and garlic tablets for the dogs. You can get them at pet stores.
our collie dog,ollie,has been brought up on regular doses of brewers yeast too. It makes his coat even shinier. I bath him every 3/4 weeks and douse him with my aftershave too,much to my Mrs chagrin.:icon_lol:

[Daveroo]

my beloved bandit was an indoor cat,,,i lived downtown near the fairgrounds and the busy old town tourist trap area,so i didnt want to let her out and be a target for idiots.....my upstairs nieghbor,who was also the apartment manager ,and a heavy drug user...thought she knew what was best for everyone....well id go to work in the mornings and candi would go down to my apartment and let bandit outside....then an hour or so before i was to come home..she went down again and put bandit back in.....this went on for several years before i caught on....the way i caught on...one morning i woke and a visitor to my room tapped me and asked me why she itched....my bed was infested with fleas....MY BED!!!...and i had changed the sheets the night before when i left the apt to go out for the evening...turned out the fleas were embeded in the carpet next to the bed....

bandit got hit by a car one day...a witness,,said that she was crossing the street out front to head to the fairgrounds and some kid swerved out of his way to hit her..he was TRYING to hit her....broke her back..last vertabra..and she ended up with a dead tail and bladder troubles...then a gal i dated/lived with poisened her because she had to give away a dog she had gotten two days before she moved in with me and was mad....so she killed my cat to retaliate....

after she got hit by the car...i had walked to the local bar in old town auburn..the shanghai...they filmed the travolta movie phenominon there..anyway...i walked down there...and candi came and let bandit out...she followed me to the bar..im sitting there visiting with friends and hear YOWL!!!!...i looked down and there stands bandit.....she stayed in the bar with me and walked home with me later...LOL

[OleBoy]

Sounds like everyone has their own theory. Here's my solution. Moss killer. Go get some moss killer and spread it out on the lawn. Water it lightly, let dry, water it again and really soak it in. Let it dry. Best to do at night when you soak it in. Fleas are gone, dead. All of them for about two years. The moss too!