Are fleas now resistant to Frontline? What's my plan? (2 dogs, 2 cats)

[LCBMAX]

First of all, I'll say that I'm more wigged out by fleas than by chemicals at this point. In pregnancy and with a little baby, I went bananas doing it all naturally, and we did ok keeping the fleas down, but so much work! I simply cannot do that kind of work anymore, so I'm cool with chemicals if I can be convinced that safe use is more or less safe.

Our dog yard is damp, as much as anything is damp in the desert, and our last frost seems to have passed, so we've frontlined the 2 dogs and our 2 indoor/ outdoor cats because they were starting to scratch.

That was 4 days ago, and I'm seeing some scratching again. I guess I'll brush them all with diatomaceous earth tonight, start hunting for nematodes for the yard, toss the vacuum bag with each use, keep washing the dog beds every couple of days (do I have to wash the insides or just the covers?)... what else? The cats don't sleep in any one place so while I can cover the couch with a washable blanket, I can't do much about the rugs.

Please, please, please - tell me what to do. Is it possible to be flea free with indoor/ outdoor pets? How?

Thanks in advance.

[abiyhayil]

Advantage works awesome, frontline didnt do a thing for us

[lonegirl]

Are you seeing fleas/flea dirt or just scratching??
I would go with Revolution or Advantage plus as you have dogs and they both are great Heartworm, intestinal parasite preventives as well. They are both once a month treatments.
The animals can pick up fleas from their environment and carry them in and eggs can be dropped in the home....Frontline does not prevent eggs from hatching. Revolution does. BTW flea eggs can lay dormant up to a year and then hatch when conditions are favourable.

[North_Of_60]

You will also need to treat your yard/around the outside of the house. They got the fleas from somewhere. It's possible a squirrel or raccoon brought them onto your property and then they carried them inside.

I just noticed fleas on the dogs the other day so I picked up some capstar and will be going out in a bit to pick up some Tempo to spray the yard with. *sigh*

I hate fleas.

[SophieAnn]

We use a monthly oral preventative (for flea/heartworm as recommended by our vets) and have never had any flea problems at all.

Reading the info from the drug we use (Sentinel), for an existing flea problem they recommend Capstar to kill the adult fleas while using Sentinel as a monthly preventative.

http://www.medi-vet.com/Sentinel.aspx

[ktgrok]

The new scratching doesn't mean it isn't working. New fleas will continue to hatch for a few weeks, from before you used the product. It takes at least a month to be totally flea free, sorry. You can treat the house/yard too, to speed up the process.

[mamadelbosque]

Another thought, your dogs may just have dry skin - we give our dogs an egg a day when they stat to scratch and it really seems to help keep their skin from drying out and them starting to scratch constantly.

[kittywitty]

We used both Advantage and Frontline for almost a year on our 5 cats and 1 dog (no yard then to worry about) and they NEVER worked. Hundreds of dollars, several different lots, not a change at all. I gave up. I don't know what else to do. Where did you get your DE? I can't find it here and it worked when we got our dog from the pound as a puppy...

[tinyblackdot]

Comfortis is a great flea prevention, its a pill you give them every month, but it only does the fleas, but it works really really really well.

Revolution does fleas, mites, a form of mange, common dog ticks, and heartworms.....it does not claim to clear up worms in dogs, however it will in cats.

Advantage does fleas,mites and a few parasitic worms.

You might also want to get a good tapeworm dewormer if your pets have fleas, most likely they will have them.

You can also use capstar, which is also a pill, to kill the fleas immediately. It works withing 30 minutes or so. And then start using the monthly flea prevention of your choice.

But yes, frontline is not working as well anymore. Frontline is a pestacide, and the fleas are becoming immune to it.....where comfortis and revolution are actual medications.

[LCBMAX]

OP here -
mamadelbosque: not seeing fleas, but I am psychologically unable to see them. I am seeing the cats twitching their skin and hopping around to catch that itch, though, so I think it's more than dry skin...

kittywitty: I got the diatomaceous earth both from a holistic pet store, and also from a garden store. I think it's also online, but it's heavy so I bet shipping$ will be discouraging.

North of 60: HOW do you treat your outdoor areas? It's definitely the source, and we live in a rabbity-squirrely-rodenty area - I'm sure those critters prowl the dog yard at night when the dogs are inside. Nematodes? How to get them?

Ok, so I think we should do a dose of capstar, and then retreat with advantage sooner than the 4 week frontline dose is due. Love the idea (in this case at least, so much for do-unto-others) of killing everything else possible with Revolution, but since the other critters are not really an issue here, I think we'll spare the animals' physiology for now. Til then - I'll keep the couches and dog beds covered, wash often, and figure out how to treat the yard. Darn these tenacious things, and darn me for being so wiggy about them!

Thanks everyone for the fleasy tutorial, and your experience. Love to your furry ones - may they all be healthy and happy.

[North_Of_60]

Originally Posted by LCBMAX

North of 60: HOW do you treat your outdoor areas? It's definitely the source, and we live in a rabbity-squirrely-rodenty area - I'm sure those critters prowl the dog yard at night when the dogs are inside. Nematodes? How to get them?

Unfortunately, water proof chemicals. It's the ONLY thing that works. Well, for us anyway. Get something that keeps killing for a whole month, then you only need to re-apply to kill the new batch that hatches and re-evaluate in a few months.

I'm using Tempo. It's made by Bayer. You can buy single doses at Petco that treat 2000 square feet, but we just went ahead and bought a pint size bottle. Each ounce treats 2000 square feet, so it's much more economical. And then you load it into a pump sprayer and go to town. Go up trees and fences and the side of the house about 4 feet. It kills on contact and is water proof within an hour.

I really, really, REALLY want to knock this out. I'm not messing around.

[MrsMike]

*** WARNING!!! MAJOR NERD MOMENT AHEAD***


I hate to bring this up, but the adult fleas that you see on your pet only represent 5% of the population. The rest of the population consists of the eggs, the larvae and the pupae. It's the pupae that pose the biggest problem and the reason that fleas seem to keep coming back. Those buggers last about 6 months in your home environment and you cannot kill them. The outer shell is water resistant and nothing on the market kills them. The pupae are the final stage before the fleas actual hatch. The only way to get rid of the pupae is to mechanically remove them - i.e. by vacuuming. Vacuuming and disposing of the contents quickly will help get rid of many of them. Vacuuming serves another purpose. The pupae hatch when exposed to combo of three things - heat, vibrations and carbon dioxide. A vacuum provides heat and vibration. Walking around your house provides vibration. Once hatched, the adult fleas are susceptible to any kind of treatment around your house, the topical meds on your dog, capstar or a plain old vacuuming.

I know not everyone is into using topical treatments or heartworm treatments do to toxicity concerns. However, I'm just going to go over them. I'm not a fan of Frontline. Yes, fleas are developing resistance. We see a very high rate of Frontline failure. Advantix works well. There is a new one on the market called Vectra and so far clients are VERY pleased with this. Program is an injection that prevents flea eggs from hatching. This option isn't very popular with our clients. Sentinel is a heartworm medication that also kills roundworms, hookworms and whipworms and also contains an ingredient that prevents flea eggs from hatching. There is a misunderstanding about Sentinel as people often say it is flea "birth control." Not true. The fleas can still lay eggs, but the lufenuron prevents the egg shell from developing properly so the eggs cannot hatch. Sentinel takes care of 50% of the flea population by getting rid of those eggs. It also takes care of another 35% of the population by not allowing those eggs to develop into larvae. You can get the adults of your dog by giving Capstar. Capstar can be given everyday if need be and is generally pretty cheap. It's just getting through those 4-6 months of controlling the pupae that's the pain in the ass, but with vacuuming, cleaning and control of the other life cycles of the flea you can overcome it. The dogs and kitties will need a de-wormer such as Drontal to get rid of the tapeworms that the fleas transmit.

Hope this helped a little. Sorry for the nerdiness.

Flea Pyramid

[Arduinna]

Originally Posted by SophieAnn

We use a monthly oral preventative (for flea/heartworm as recommended by our vets) and have never had any flea problems at all.

Reading the info from the drug we use (Sentinel), for an existing flea problem they recommend Capstar to kill the adult fleas while using Sentinel as a monthly preventative.

http://www.medi-vet.com/Sentinel.aspx

Thank you for posting this, I hadn't heard of it before.

[awalshe09]

nerdiness much appreciated. thank you.

what about DE? do people use it indoors as well as outdoors, is it safe for small humans to be around?

[RiverSky]

Food grade DE is safe around mammals (including humans) EXCEPT you don't want to breathe it in.

We live in SW FL and even though our cats are indoor cats, they would sometimes get fleas because we would let them onto our screened-in (caged) lanai and the fleas would jump in from the grassy yard, through the screen and onto the cats. Since we preferred not to always give our cats Advantage or Revolution, it was only once they actually got fleas that we would resort to those things, but they always worked wonderfully on the pets. Once, we waited too long to realize what was going on and there was a major flea infestation in our house. The cats were fine, but we were getting bitten like crazy, until I was extremely diligent about sprinkling borax all over the carpets in the carpeted bedrooms, and leaving them for as many hours as possible (we spent a couple of nights camping out in the master bedroom, while other bedrooms were treated), until we could vacuum it all up. The borax would scratch and kill the fleas themselves, then we vacuumed it all up. I had to repeat the process a few times. I also vacuumed and mopped the house repeatedly and I put chlorine bleach in the mop water, to help kill anything on the floors (my theory, not sure if it worked). Eventually, everything was gone, partly because some of the fleas would jump up on our treated pets and die after biting them, partly because of my constant vacuuming, boraxing and mopping.

One thing to note is that you have to be vigilant about emptying out the vacuum cleaner after vacuuming. We would throw out the paper filter bag each time, otherwise, the fleas would just find their way out of the vacuum and jump back on the mammals again.

Frontline didn't work for us nearly as well, either. Advantage or Revolution always did. and Revolution was what our foster/rescue organization put on the newborn kittens I fostered as well.

[wahoowhippets]

I have several dogs and live in Florida....we have used Comfortis and I like it a lot as it isn't topical...just a simple pill...I also like Capstar as well as Revolution....

[marimara]

In the South, many are saying that the fleas are becoming immune to Frontline. I live in S. GA and it happened to me. I now use Comfortis without any problems. Love it!

[youngwife]

Originally Posted by wahoowhippets

I have several dogs and live in Florida....we have used Comfortis and I like it a lot as it isn't topical...just a simple pill...I also like Capstar as well as Revolution....

Yep! Here in Mississippi, this is the only thing that works for us!

It's not-so-simple for us, though. Our Yorkie mix is the dickens to give this to!

That's my only complaint.