Here is a picture of two of my beloved, spoiled rotten kitty cats; "Splat" (black and white) and "Brutus", (the fat grey one.) Not shown is my black, silky long-haired "Cosette". Brutus and Splat are shown on one of my fantastic, puke-green chairs that await slipcovering. I can't bring myself to throw this set away, as I love the shape of them....... so I am slipcovering instead of replacing. Anyway - this is a post about pets, not chairs.So, to get to the point - as I mentioned in my last post, over the weekend, we discovered that our cats brought fleas into the house. I don't know why we didn't prevent this by just doing Frontline earlier in the spring, but it simply did not occur to me until we already had the flea problem. So we went to town on a Sunday, and the only flea treatment we could find at the only place open - Tractor Supply Co. - were generic versions of Frontline.... so we chose the more expensive version, and treated them all with it.
It has taken care of most of their fleas, but my problem is that now I have to treat the house.
I always thought fleas only lived in carpets; but they're on our hardwood floors also. I went to Wal-Mart and bought a bottle of flea killing spray, which worked; and I know I will have to vacuum every day for several weeks until all the life cycle periods are over.... My dilemma is this: Every product I have treated our pets with, and doused the house with, are pure poison! I hate that! I've just stuck goop on my babies that instructs you do "wrap in a paper towel and dispose of immediately" after use; "Keep pets from grooming each other for 24 hrs," "Do not put down any outdoor or indoor drain", you're not supposed to touch it, and if you have any leftover, you have to call your local poison control or something to figure out how to dispose of it. The stuff burned a patch of fur off Splat where I applied it, which makes me feel bad. At the store, there were all kinds of flea killing chemicals, and one I looked at was for treating your yard and bushes as well. It is bad enough that all my floors, carpets, and rugs are doused with chemicals, but Kevin insisted on doing the bed also; so we're sleeping with toxins. We even had to treat the sofa, and chairs. So we sit with the toxin.
So, what is a good pet owner to do? It seems like, if I want to keep my "cuddle fuzzies", (my nickname for the cats) I have to surround my home with chemicals, inside, outside, and on the cats themselves. Great.
Has anyone ever heard of a natural way to kill fleas, and keep them away? I heard one time about using Listerine to repel mosquitoes, but I do not know if it works for these nasty fleas. I am most seriously disturbed about this. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.
3 comments:
There's a whole line of natural pet care products that I can't remember the name of right now, but we used it for Lucky when he had fleas. We used Hertz on him first and then when all his hair STARTED TO FALL OUT I did some research and found out that they had PULLED THEIR WHOLE LINE OF FLEA PRODUCTS several months before because of multiple reports of death and injury to housepets-- particularly small animals... He recovered eventually, after weeks of open, bleeding sores and complete loss of hair over, maybe, 20% of his body.
I will never use that stuff again. Ever.
The natural brand takes a little longer (as usual) and is perhaps less effective? But we kept it up with baths and washing the furniture and eventually we got rid of them I had to throw his bed out, though, it was a complete loss.
I didn't know that you had a pet, Lis. Dog or Cat?
I've heard that crushed orange peel works if you rub it into their fur but I've never tried it.
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