UPDATE : BEFORE READING THIS , PLEASE NOTE THAT CAT IS NOW WELL & LIVES AT MY DAUGHTERS TO ENSURE NEVER CATCHING FLEAS AGAIN.
WE HOWEVER STILL HAD THE WHITE CAT & THIS YEAR [2011] SHE CONTRACTED FLEAS SO WE BOUGHT THE HARTZ ULTRA GUARD PLUS Collar at Walmart and it slowly killed her over the course of a month. I thought she was getting a urinary tract infection so was going to bring her to the Vet, but then by her behavior I remembered what happened to other people cats from drops & collars.
By the time we removed the collar and were going to bring her to the Vet she died.
So here we go:
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 Cat 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! All the over the counter {OTC} remedies by Sargent, Hartz, Bansect & smaller brands, use insecticides that poison the pet while killing the fleas. Pets may become lathargic or irritable, vomit or shed fur or scratch causing sores or fur loss. While the majority of animals do not die from this slow poisoning, it shortens their lifespan, as it enters their sebaceous glands & actually causes them continual pain til the stuff wears off~
Vets have safer brands~ Advantage, Frontline, Advantix – The ones for cats is based differently than the ingredients for dogs. Dog Flea Drops are lethal for cats & also for sensitive dogs. Problem is you cant judge how sensitive the dog will be. Last year a healthy Labrador Retriever had a flea bath with Sargents for dogs~ Over the next several days he lost his appetite and strength & though the pet owner took him to the Vet, all they could do was watch the poor dog slowly die as the poison in the bath destroyed him from the inside out~
The Government doesnt set the regulations good enough to protect our pets. Sargents Customer Service told me they need the Vat #s of the bad drops since they ‘outsource’ them abroad and sometimes get a bad vat~!!! Some vats can be too strong and thus more lethal.
Sargents asked me to send in my Vet Bills as though they were going to reimburse me but all they did was weigh out their liability since I told them the tube was discarded at the Vet’s so I couldnt return the carton or tube. I did let them know which store I got it from and also contacted the store to see if any more from that vat were there, but unfortunately they sold them all.
Many owners dont even associate their pets sudden illnesses with the application of these products since often the reactions slowly start and take days or even weeks til the animal dies. In my cat’s case however, the reaction was severe & life threatening withing 2 hours~
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! Many people are under the same assumption I was. It is almost kinder to shoot the pet than to put Sargents or Hartz onto them making them suffer~[not really shooting, but by example its quicker than letting these supposedly safe flea products on them that cause pain , suffering & even death in many animals]
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 thought when my cat reacted that I may have used the dog tube by mistake, but later my son checked all the tubes in the draw and the Hartz dog ones were unopened, so he told me that I did in fact use the cat drops…. Regardless, both are toxic to animals~!!
I believed that was the only difference was volume of drops to be applied, but even ones designated for larger dogs, can be quickly lethal to puppies and smaller breeds of dogs.
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.
So why sell toxic pet products??
PROFIT~! SARGENTS & HARTZ ARE THE BIGGEST CULPRITS~!
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~ I DIVIDED A SINGLE DOSE TUBE FOR 1 CAT AND PUT JUST 2 DROPS ON EACH OF OUR 3 CATS….SO if anything it should have been less effective, but never lethal~
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 Bansect 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? It was not keeping the fleas off and so I thought I had to try something else.
I then decided to divide the one tube I had, up over the 3 cats and would just get more in the morning. [so I thought]
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, if even for just the night.
2-3 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 placed her into a cage , while I 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 Bansect flea collar and said she was going to give her a bath in Dawn Dishwashing detergent, to remove any residue of the flea drops. I gave her the empty Sargents Cat Flea Drops tube, in case she needed it for determining what antidote to give or to call their company. I didnt know I should have kept the tube for proof of what it did to my cat~!!
She said the standard proceedure was to put an IV for fluids in her [to prevent dehydration] and give her a variety of meds to stop the seizures [ methocarbomal & valium & 1 other med] and whatever else the Vet may determine as necessary and would call us the next day.
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 for 1 day and then observation & then allowed to come home to recover.
We are lucky since many pets die from over the counter flea remedies, since the government doesnt properly regulate them.
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! I live on disability but it was the beginning of the month, so I hadnt yet paid my bills and diverted the money to paying the Vet.
We were very grateful that they saved her ,but unprepared for such a large bill, which forced me to stay home all summer as I couldnt re-register my car til August as I had to catch up on my own rent & household bills first.
These poisons used in pet care products should be illegal.Anyone who has had a similar experience should blog about it, write to their Congressman & Senators as well as their State Representative’s offices ~! The more people who report these reactions will eventually force the government to look into it and ban the cheap toxic ingredients that the manufacturers are still ‘legally’ allowed to use. Sargents claimed that only 1 in a 1000 animals have the reaction, but there is no way to prove that since many owners are unaware that it is the flea products making their animals sick~!!
Since they are sold over the counter everywhere, Hartz and Sargents & Bansect are well known brands, many people assume them to be safe but they aren’t~They are all toxic~!!
They use pesticide based 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.
Sargents Customer Service Representative said to me on the phone ‘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. Other victims agree.
I joined HartzVictims Org and am now joining with other organizations in making other pet owners 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 any of my pets 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 since she was a kitten, but it didnt seem like the collars fault to me since the fur came out at the base of her tail and not around the collar area, 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.
The Vet recommendes Advantix Flea Drops and so treated her before she was discharged from the hospital. Vet offices sell the safest products, Frontline, Advantage & Advantix and can tell you which one is right for your pet~ It will cost a few dollars more, but save your pet alot of misery & maybe save their life. It will also save you a fortune on Vet bills should your pet have a violent reaction.
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! She said that most Vets already know this and do tell their patients but many people assume that all pet products sold are safe, when in fact they are not.
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? Not enough complaints have been filed with our politicians to cause them to do anything about it~!! WE all need to let them know that this is not acceptable & these products need to have their toxins removed from their products and be replaced with the safer ones.
http://avehurleyillustrations.ning.com/page/accidental-cat-poisoning
Ave Hurley
Accidental Cat Poisoning story: https://avehurley.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/common-flea-drops-will-quickly-kill-your-cat/
Ave 