How Do I Get Rid Of Fleas?

[SmokeyR67]

I'm always upset about Smokey, but that's just me:)

 

My method of reducing flea issues involves walking out of the house for a few days,putting the dogs into a kennel,  spraying the yard with a pyrethrum based product, flea bombing the house , coming home and putting anything soft and fluffy in the washing machine (if your a dog, cat, possum or baby in a bunny suit stand well back) and vacuuming the carpet to within and inch of it's life. Before the dogs come home they get a bath with a very mild insecticide ( I had a kennel bath my dog many years ago, they used a sheep dip , after losing a number of feet of intestine, she eventually lost her life), when they're dry some sort of spot on flea treatment, and then I wrap them in glad wrap before they can meet another "flea free"  dog.

[Maddy]

12 minutes ago, moosmum said:

Maybe I have missed it, but I haven't seen people on here being treated badly for asking advise on flea treatment.

 

When we moved onto our land it had the worst flea infestation I have seen. Going into the dirt floored shed you would come out with a carpet running up your leg.

It took awhile, but have to agree its certainly possible to be flea free when you don't have to worry about what comes from next door. We are also flea free.

 

It may be common, and not worth being upset about Smokey, but it shouldn't be 'normal' either.

Not really. I think poor old Smokey may have suffered some sort of terrible flea-shaming in his life.

How the conversation actually goes:
OP: "My dogs have fleas, how do I fix the problem?"

Other people here: "I prefer to use [this], [this] or [this], but I've heard a lot of people have success with [this]."

 

How Smokey sees it go down:

OP: "My dogs have fleas, how do I fix the problem?"
Other people here: "LIGHT THE PYRE! SHARPEN THE PITCHFORKS! Prepare to burn the flea-abiding MONSTER, we shall anoint his earthly remains with Frontline before we offer them to the angry god, Dettol, keeper of absolute hygiene!"

[Roova]

[SmokeyR67]

Maddy,

 

Thanks for the quick and dirty psychological assessment, fantastic, now can I have a script for 3 dozen valium, a gross of 5mg oxycontin and hey, a bit of doxycycline wouldn't do my malaria any harm,,,

 

 

 

 

 

[Maddy]

3 hours ago, SmokeyR67 said:

Maddy,

 

Thanks for the quick and dirty psychological assessment, fantastic, now can I have a script for 3 dozen valium, a gross of 5mg oxycontin and hey, a bit of doxycycline wouldn't do my malaria any harm,,,

Sorry, Smokey. As a member of the flea schutzstaffel, the best we can do is imidacloprid.

My aunt had malaria and swears by herbal remedies for the chronic joint pain. The sort of herbal remedy that you buy from people who keep scissors on their coffee tables, if you catch my drift.

Probably better for you than opiates. As far as I know, you don't get the rebound pain like you would from opiates, which makes it easier to wean off.

 

edit: *Disclaimer* Don't buy drugs, drugs are bad.

 

Edited July 23, 2017 by Maddy

[Simply Grand]

[tdierikx]

This is better than watching TV...

 

*grabs popcorn*... anyone want to share?

 

T.

[persephone]

14 hours ago, tdierikx said:

This is better than watching TV...

 

*grabs popcorn*... anyone want to share?

 

T.

 Uncle Troy  will be cross.....  

[_PL_]

Where is Uncle Troy?  He's got to see this!

[Scottsmum]

1 hour ago, Powerlegs said:

Where is Uncle Troy?  He's got to see this!

Trying to wrap his dogs in cling wrap to keep the fleas away?

[tdierikx]

47 minutes ago, Scottsmum said:

Trying to wrap his dogs in cling wrap to keep the fleas away?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

T.

[Loving my Oldies]

17 hours ago, tdierikx said:

This is better than watching TV...

 

*grabs popcorn*... anyone want to share?

 

T.

Uh oh!  Don’t think mention of p**c*** is allowed.    

[tdierikx]

6 hours ago, Dame Danny's Darling said:

Uh oh!  Don’t think mention of p**c*** is allowed.    

Passes bag to DDD... it's yummy though...

 

T.

[Papillon Kisses]

Crack open a bottle then? 

 

I just love how this thread exploded after an apparent spammer bumped up a six year old thread.

[SmokeyR67]

I love the whole teenage cliqueiness of this site, it makes me feel so young again.

[Maddy]

59 minutes ago, SmokeyR67 said:

I love the whole teenage cliqueiness of this site, it makes me feel so young again.

If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn't consider myself to be part of any clique. If someone says something I disagree with, I voice my opinion. 

I don't dislike the people I disagree with, I'm just not keen on they have to say. Case in point, Kodi thread. Go read that mess, I suggest some coffee and biscuits to go with it. Do I dislike Odin-Genie? Nope, I just think the whole thread was a shitty thing to start because it was based on rumour and involves children. Do I dislike Scrappi&Monty? Nope, I just don't agree with stereotyping people who choose to hunt for meat, rather than picking it up off the supermarket shelf, as if meat grows on plastic trays. If anything, S&M seems like a pretty reasonable chick, otherwise. I think (after 10 years) I've probably vocally disagreed with almost every regular member on here but harbour no ill will towards any. Except maybe Samman, but people with access to OT will understand exactly why that was.

My comments* weren't intended to be rallying the troops for some Smokey bashing. And to be honest, I'm not entirely convinced that Smokey bashing is actually happening. You made some comments that people thought were very.. silly (is the nicest word I can think of there), and plenty of people can't resist an opportunity to poke the bear. For the most part, I think it was pretty good-natured and very restrained. No one accused you of being a patchouli scented latte sipper, no one suggested (even implicitly) that you should dislodge your head from the lower reaches of your large intestines, it was all pretty gentle.

 

Maybe Dol can be a cliquey place in some ways but a soft winding down of the thread (with silly comments about popcorn, drifting further and further off topic) is not cliquey behaviour. It's a peaceful way for a thread to die. Just let the thread go towards the light, okay? 

 

*Which was meant with some seriousness. To call opiates double-edged swords would be being extremely generous, as they beget even more pain when the user tries to quit. 

[SmokeyR67]

Maddy, thanks, I have no problems with your comments, after all, a forum is by definition an area to debate, and I never at any stage meant to offend people, I just suck at communicating via this inter webby thing. I know that sometimes I push my point WAAAY to far, but without the ability to use body language and facial gestures I can think of no other way.

 

If you have a look at a few recent posts,there was a bit of "peer bonding" going on, so I pointed that out and had a wee bit of a crack back, but I didn't take offence. Perhaps that's just because I'm an old contrarian who loves a debate, or just a thick skinned arsehole - either /or

 

On to more important things, I've spent hours watching you tube videos of puppies and I need all of your support - I'm starting a crowd funding site so I can have one of every dog, and I'll need your support to keep them flea free

 

Shane

[Maddy]

Oh, I totally get you about the limitations of online communication. Sans the tone that might suggest a gentler intent, I think it's very easy to come across as abrupt or even *gasp* mean. 

My biggest pet peeve though is people flip-flopping all over the place in discussions, never answering rebuttals but bringing up new points (some entirely unrelated to the argument) or using fallacies to make a discussion so absurd that it's not worth continuing with. 

A bit of the above happened in this thread and I'll admit, I got a bit abrupt with you. I'm not sure I recall seeing much peer-bonding-through-Smokey-mauling but like they say, cliquey is in the eye of the beholder (regardless of the intent of others).

 

With regards to fleas, best way to keep dogs flea free is to not suffer infestation in the first place. On the local FB pet pages, there are inevitably threads upon threads, complaining that Owner tried product X but their house is still crawling with thousands of fleas so obviously X product doesn't actually work. Cue the people suggesting various potions, lotions, supplements, powders, elixirs that they made using a recipe that they received from divine wisdom (don't ask, I don't know) and assorted other home remedies. Actually, on the topic of bizarre home remedies.. enjoy!

 

[SmokeyR67]

Maddy, I've found you nothing but abrupt, short and terse, and I find that oddly refreshing

 

Anyhoo, my point in this thread is that fleas (like s&t*) happen, I just accept that if my dogs have a social life, they'll get fleas. "Spot on" products will minimise the impact between baths, and every few months we'll go out for the weekend while the house is flea bombed

 

I do have a flea based question - it's a herd immunity thing - if you have multiple pets, should you use the same brand of flea treatment for all, or use different products on each. I've heard that fleas can over time become immune to each product, so I'm curious about the best way to use them - is there a parasite expert in the house?

 

 

[Maddy]

You know, the only immunity issue I've heard of is with Frontline. I've used mostly Advocate for 10+ years and never had a problem. I've added Revolution to that but that was partly because I was buying it for my rabbits anyway (Revolution is one of the few treatments safe for the fluffy-arsed folk). I'd suspect improper dosing would be a more likely cause of immunity but even then.. I doubt it would be a common issue. Interestingly, research was done testing two common actives (Fipronil and Imidacloprid) on human head lice and they found that the Fipronil appeared to kill a certain number of adult lice (30%? Something like that, it's been a while since I read it) but after 24 hours, the lice were back up and moving again. So there, you have exposure and survival, which could be expected to result in some immunity- not unlike very young rabbit kits and RHD; if they come into contact with it as youngsters, they are immune as adults. Whether this immunity can be passed on or only benefits the individual, I'm not sure. I don't think that particular question was followed up in the research, which is a shame because the answer would be useful to know.

Worms would be a different question again. Horses live in environments that are naturally.. pretty wormy. Collect a sample for ova testing that has been sitting in the paddock for any longer than an hour or so and you might find worms have actually moved in (to the incidental worms I've killed by dropping iodine onto them, I'm sorry; wrong place, wrong time). These worms don't infest horses, they're just part of the naturally wormy outdoors but it goes to show that it's a very different environment from the average backyard that is kept to a reasonable level of cleanliness. Worms covers different species with different ways of completing their cycles and the only way to be sure would be to test across a variety of conditions, for a variety of species. So, just to be safe, I rotate wormers here and there. Ideally, I'd find a vet who loved doing fecal ova counts (ha!) and be able to rest easy but oddly enough, most would prefer to just worm with a generic and not worry too much further than that. Understandable, I guess, especially when you're the person who has to wash up the stick blender used for preparing samples.