Please Help! Natural Flea Preventative For My Little One

[poodlefan]

Unless you know fleas are an issue where you live, I prefer treatments to prevenatives.

In 11 years of dog ownership I've found fleas on my dogs ONCE. This isn't a bad area for them but I do question the practice of 'just in case' dosage with chemicals when fleas are hardly a life threatening parasite.

Ticks on the other hand - better safe than sorry. :rolleyes:

Don't confuse "natural" and "herbal" with "automatically safe". Some of the most powerful toxins around occur in nature. Common alternative treatments like Tea Tree oil can be toxic to dogs. Its also important to remember that many commonly used alternative treatments have not been scientifically tested for their efficacy.

Nosodes are a case in point.

Edited January 23, 2009 by poodlefan

[mita]

A preventative remedy I'd like to try, but can't because we don't live close to the beach.

A man who owned a produce store which sold all the regular flea treatments, once told me he'd never used any of them on his own 2 blue heelers. And they never had a flea.

He swore by regular swims in the salt water at the beach near his home. He reckoned salt water did the trick.

[poodlefan]

A preventative remedy I'd like to try, but can't because we don't live close to the beach.

A man who owned a produce store which sold all the regular flea treatments, once told me he'd never used any of them on his own 2 blue heelers. And they never had a flea.

He swore by regular swims in the salt water at the beach near his home. He reckoned salt water did the trick.

Fleas can't breathe underwater. :rolleyes:

[mita]

A preventative remedy I'd like to try, but can't because we don't live close to the beach.

A man who owned a produce store which sold all the regular flea treatments, once told me he'd never used any of them on his own 2 blue heelers. And they never had a flea.

He swore by regular swims in the salt water at the beach near his home. He reckoned salt water did the trick.

Fleas can't breathe underwater. :rolleyes:

Notice how I began by describing this as a 'preventative remedy'?

The man's point was that the bathing in salt water left some kind or residue which deterred fleas between swims.

This was the only means he used for bathing the dogs.

Edited January 23, 2009 by mita

[poodlefan]

A preventative remedy I'd like to try, but can't because we don't live close to the beach.

A man who owned a produce store which sold all the regular flea treatments, once told me he'd never used any of them on his own 2 blue heelers. And they never had a flea.

He swore by regular swims in the salt water at the beach near his home. He reckoned salt water did the trick.

Fleas can't breathe underwater. :rolleyes:

Notice how I began by describing this as a 'preventative remedy'?

The man's point was that the bathing in salt water left some kind or residue which deterred fleas between swims.

This was the only means he used for bathing the dogs.

If the fleas drown before the owner knows they are there, is it preventative or treatment? I'd imagine he'd not have been going over his dogs with a flea comb every day.

Salt is a well known home remedy for killing fleas btw. Apparently salting carpets, then vacumming can be quite effective in getting rid of them. Perhaps on the skin it works the same way.

[mita]

A preventative remedy I'd like to try, but can't because we don't live close to the beach.

A man who owned a produce store which sold all the regular flea treatments, once told me he'd never used any of them on his own 2 blue heelers. And they never had a flea.

He swore by regular swims in the salt water at the beach near his home. He reckoned salt water did the trick.

Fleas can't breathe underwater. :rolleyes:

Notice how I began by describing this as a 'preventative remedy'?

The man's point was that the bathing in salt water left some kind or residue which deterred fleas between swims.

This was the only means he used for bathing the dogs.

If the fleas drown before the owner knows they are there, is it preventative or treatment? I'd imagine he'd not have been going over his dogs with a flea comb every day.

Salt is a well known home remedy for killing fleas btw. Apparently salting carpets, then vacumming can be quite effective in getting rid of them. Perhaps on the skin it works the same way.

The man bathed his dogs via regular swims in salt water....because he said it worked efficiently as flea prevention. The residue left by the salt, in his experience, acted as a deterrent. So there were no fleas to drown. That was his point.

His lived near a beach where he exercised his dogs daily, which included a swim. He said he did not dry or rinse off the dogs after the swim....leaving residue on skin & hair.

He had commercial preventative flea products in his own store.....but said he did not use them, because he'd found the swims worked efficiently.

Yes, salt on a carpet is a good for getting rid of fleas.

[fainty_girl]

I don't use natural flea treatments.

When we just had 1 dog Jessie never had fleas at all. Tilly seems to attract fleas though! They both had frontline put on a few days ago, but a couple of days afterwards I found a flea on Tilly.

Maybe the frontline had passed its use by date, although i'm not sure ...

So I gave Tilly a bath with the Fido's flea shampoo (washed & rinsed twice) and I haven't seen a flea on her since.

I'll need to get some advantix or something, and try a different brand.

My dogs go swimming in salt water nearly everyday too.

Edited January 25, 2009 by fainty_girl