At last, it seems I have gotten the upper hand in my battle against the fleas and my little Papillon’s hair is growing back! I have a full multi-front attack that has worked! Controlling fleas when you have multiple dogs is a challenge, but this method has worked for my sensitive Papillons as well as my German Shepherd. If you feel like you are losing the battle against the fleas, and the topicals like Frontline don’t seem to work, here are conventional and natural flea solutions that worked!
Step 1: Although I dislike using chemicals, if the fleas have gotten a real hold on your house and yard, you’ll probably need to exterminate to regain control. Use a mix of a flea killer like Permethrin to kill the existing fleas, and an IGR (Insect Growth Regulator). The IGR is important because without it, you’ll end up with another load of fleas when the eggs hatch. The way IGR’s work is they prevent insects from reaching adulthood, or reproductive age. Flea eggs exposed to IGR will not make it to reproduce. Treat your house and yard with this mix. WARNING: SOME DOGS AND MANY CATS ARE ALLERGIC TO PERMETHERINS!
Step 2: Use Comfortis, the new chewable flea tablet. The beauty of Comfortis is that first, it really works, and second, it doesn’t wash off, cause greasy spots or skin irritation. The reason you need to continue treating your pet is because once you take care of the main problem with the extermination, you still need to make sure any new fleas that slipped through the cracks or migrated over are still taken care of. One flea can produce up to 50 eggs a day, so without continuing the program you could easily be back where you were!
Step3: In order to keep fleas at bay and reduce the number that come back into your house, treat your dog with natural topical solutions that discourage fleas from wanting to hitch-hike back to your house. I spray down my dogs with a natural flea repellent when we go out and put a few drops of natural neem solution between their shoulders once a week. It’s kind of similar to the garlic effect, but smells a lot better. To keep the yard and house inhospitable to unwelcome fleas, try a natural cedar spray and/or diatomaceous earth. Diatomaceous earth is actually very effective in killing pests while the cedar is a great repellent.
In order to prevent having to use the chemical pesticides again, keep up the natural solutions regularly so the fleas never again get a hold of your house. If you don’t have that much of a problem, you can try the organic, natural solutions first to see if you can take care of the problem that way. These natural solutions do well against a lot of other nasty creepy crawlies like roaches too!
GOOD LUCK!
