It’s flea and tick season, again.
My dogs already got fleas and brought some into the house. 2 of my son’s cats also got out and caught some. Last but not least MY cat, who has never been outside, got some too~
My cat , who never goes out, caught the fleas despite her relatively new flea collar and was itching terribly to get them off and spreading them as she went from room to room.
I found her on top of my bed and saw 3-4 fleas hop off so I caught and killed them immediately.It was the 30th, so I had one more day to wait for my check so to buy her another flea collar.
Last month I picked up a single dose tube of Sargents Flea drops at a discount store in Big Flats NY to try on my cats, but had just put flea collars on each of them, so didnt use the drops right away.
I also have a 3 pack at home of Hartz for the dogs, but my son said he didnt want to use them as his vet had some sort of pill he wanted to get for his pups & dogs as we have 7 and I planned on treating them all at the same time.
Now we will never use any flea drops ever again. They are not safe!
They can and do kill pets~they aren’t just repellents, they are poison!
They enter the fur and go into the sebaceous glands of the animal and that is how they get rid of the fleas but they also affect the animal’s central nervous system! Any animal can have a reaction at any time too .
So even if you used it before and didnt notice any harm, doesnt mean it isnt having an accumulative effect on your pet and the very next dose used could be the lethal one~!
Meanwhile at the time I didn’t know how devastating Flea drops and other Flea products are . I was under the impression that the same medicine[which I now know is a poison] worked the same for cats and dogs as they get the same fleas.
I thought the medicine was only toxic to the bugs and not the pets!
I thought they were sold based on size of the animal, so that smaller doses were for cats and puppies and larger doses were for dogs. I believed that was the only difference.I didnt know that some dog doses even have something different in them that the dog’s liver is supposed to be able to process but that the cat’s liver can not process. Sop why sell toxic pet products?? I later learned about this at the Vet’s when it was already too late!
So, on that night, I then had this single dose tube for the cats, but since we have 3 cats,initially I was waiting to get more of the drops to treat them with at the same time, since their flea collars weren’t as effective as they should have been as they each were scratching with fleas~
Two of my son’s cats had recently gotten outside and so they too, were bringing in fleas, even though they had on relatively new flea collars! That was why I was going to try the flea drops.
My cat however was never outside, but between the traffic of the puppies being taken out for ‘walks’ and the other two cats having gotten out, my little cat wasnt immune and her collar obviously wasnt working either.
She was scratching nonstop and over the last few weeks was losing fur down on her back by her tail. Her coat had lost its luster. I told my son that I was going to make an appt to get her neutered this month so she too could start going out like the others.
I thought her sudden hair loss was from some displacement activity as she goes into ‘heat’ so often which was why I didnt let her out either as I didnt want her to get pregnant.
It didnt occur to me that the hair loss was from from the flea collar that I put on her just over a month ago and yet there were fleas on her anyway so what good was that collar doing?
I then decided to divide the tube up over the 3 cats and would get more in the morning. The other 2 cats each got a few drops each as they were the ones going out the most.
Then I squeezed the last 2 drops of the open flea drop tube medication and put them on my cat’s neck, thinking it couldn’t hurt using so little and hoping it would bring her some relief for just the night.
3 hours later she was writhing in pain seizing and convulsing,
foaming at the mouth! I went to pick her up, she bolted and ran into
things crashing her body all over the house and ran into the
bathroom. My son caught her and we placed her into a cage and began calling vets in our area.
Our regular vet was out of town and it was night.
Another Vet called back and arranged for his Vet tech to meet us at his office and she began the treatment to try to and save my poor little cat. She cut off the flea collar and said she was going to give her a bath to remove residue of the flea drops. I gave her the empty tube in case she needed it for determining what antidote to give.
She said she was going to put an IV in her and give her a variety of meds to stop the seizures and keep her from dehydrating and then some sedatives if needed and whatever else the Vet determined as necessary. We left and went home worried as she looked like she was going to die.
She remained in the animal hospital 2 days on the IV and then came home and will recover. We are lucky since many pets die .Many owners don’t even know that these flea products can do what happened to her. My son said she looked like she had rabies with all the convulsing and foaming at the mouth~
The Vet bill however was $485 payable immediately with no payment plan available! We were very grateful that they saved her ,but unprepared for such a large bill.
These poisons used in pet care products should be illegal.
Since they are sold over the counter everywhere, Hartz and Sargents are well known brands, many people assume they were safe but they aren’t~
They use poisons in their ingredients because it is cheaper to make and they make a great profit on them, but they could use safer ingredients that will work, but corporate greed prevents them.
They say ‘only’ 1:10,000 die, but after reading so many horror stories of adverse reactions in pets and the lengths and expense owners have to go through to save their pets, I bet the fatality rate is much higher.
I am now joining with other organizations in making others aware of the
dangers of flea drops on cats.No cat or dog should have to suffer this way!
Its hard to believe that only using 2 drops was so devastating to my cat!
Worse now is all the stories I am reading online of other pets dying terrible deaths from owners not only using flea drops, but flea shampoos and even flea collars cause illness , allergic reactions and death.
I will not put another Flea Collar on her either, ever again as sure enough the spot near her tail is already starting to grow new fur and her coat is softer again- that fast! – only a few days~!
So the flea collar was causing her fur to fall out because the poisons used in them enter the sebaceous glands just like the flea drops do and can cause hair loss anywhere on the pet’s body. Since she didnt lose fur around her neck I didnt associate the fur loss to the flea collar.
Yet with all this, I still saw fleas on her, so I decided to put those 2 drops of flea treatment on her neck~ So it isnt bad enough the ingredients turn out to be potentially lethal, it didnt even relieve her of the fleas either~!
The Vet recommendes Advantix Flea Drops and so treated her before she was discharged from the hospital. She said Advantix and Frontline are the only ones they feel are ‘ safe enough’ for animals and that none of the over the counter Hartz or Sargents products are safe!
Why then are they still allowed to sell them and use the ingredients that prove time and time again to be so dangerous to pets?
I now will need to try to raise extra money to cover the emergency Veterinary bills.
http://avehurleyillustrations.ning.com/page/accidental-cat-poisoning
THANKYOU FOR YOUR HELP~!
Ave Hurley
Accidental Cat Poisoning story: http://avehurley.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/common-flea-drops-will-quickly-kill-your-cat/
Hi Ave,
Surely your vet would not recommend Advantix for a cat. It is a dog only flea treatment containing pyrethrin which cannot be metablolised by cats and so is extremely dangerous for them. Maybe they meant Advantage as both Advantage and Frontline are available for cats and do have excellent safety records.
Yeah , you are right~ They told me over the phone and I misunderstood. They put it on her before she came home.Still she was allergic to that as well as her hair has been falling out unilaterally and she looks pathetic . They said the drops should be wearing off by now and I guess they are because I found a few fleas on her the other day! They are easy to find though since her fur got so thin, poor thing. She is a bit embarrassing to show anyone, with so much fur having fallen out she looks like she’s on chemo or something. She looks so skinny! But she is eating well and is very active again. I just wish there was a way to be rid of fleas altogether but living where I do , on a farm, it is impossible as my son’s dogs go in and out of the house and they bring more back in.
Ave
I wont use flea drops again, but the flea collars we got in Walmart seem to be useless too.
i have a bottle of Sargents flea shampoo from last year and read the label and the crap has that pyrethins in it too~! Also we have a bottle of cat flea spray from Walmart, also Sargents I think- maybe Hartz – but that too has pyrethins so I wont use those either now.. I saw that video of the lab that died from shampoo and I am not taking any more chances with my cat. We just have to wait the flea season out and keep picking the fleas off as we find them…
The Advantage is the one the Vet used , but with all her fur falling out I dare not use it again.
Oh wow that sounded awful, poor kitty.. I never trust over the counter flea meds,I’ve never tried using them or will I ever.. I’ve been using advantage for many yrs , its the only brand i trust. My cats are happy, living scratch free
makes me happy..
Hi. My cat is severely allergic to advantage. Do you think it would be ok to use the Sergeants flea shampoo on him? (My situation is kinda the opposite of yours.) Thanx for reading.
NO!!!!! Dont use it ~!!!! If you cat is severely allergic to advantage, Sergeants will probably killl him~~~~!!!!!!!
It is safe to boil lemons and mix into a little water and use a spray bottle, to put it onto your cat~ Then rub it against the grain of his fur. It emits a citronella repellent to the fleas without poisoning the cat~
At least if the cat licks it, it wont harm him..
Sergeants flea bath has a derivitive from the pyrethrins. I have Sergeants Flea Spray but wont use it anymore either as it places small toxic amounts into your pet. Some withstand it while others react swiftly.
It all needs to be banned.. !
A guy bathed his dog, a big dog, hosed him off well, but still the poor dog got sick the next day and died several days later.You can read other accounts on HartzVictims Org.
The problem is many animals die and the owners dont realize it is from the toxic build up in the pet’s body from using this stuff. Some animals survive several doses and suddenly drop dead while others die right away.
Cats in particular will often crawl off and sleep when they may be in alot of pain and sick and show no outward signs.
The flea poison causes excruciating pain to your pet!
It isnt worth it!
Sally’s Beauty Supply sells a non toxic gel with a lice comb, safe for using on children~ Its non toxic and you put it on and let it catch the buggers and then comb them out and flush them down your toilet~
Once you are done combing them out, use a mild dish soap – Dawn is recommended and safe – and wash your pet off thoroughly, because even when stuff is non toxic – IF you pet is allergic – it can still harm them~!