Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Flea treatment for pets

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Flea treatment for pets

    This is very disturbing:

    https://www.theguardian.com/environm...cientists-find

    So yet another way in which highly toxic chemicals are being released into the environment and poisoning creatures in the ecosystem. And no indication yet of any stop to it, much less of a solution to the pet flea problem which avoids spewing toxins into the world

    The only silver lining for me personally is that it makes me feel better about the fact that I only get round about once every several months to administering the prescribed monthly flea treatment to our cats. Sheer laziness and dilatoriness on my part (it's not a pleasant task as the cats hate it and can cause scratches on my arms with frantic clawing, not to mention our paranoia about our own risk of contact with the chemicals), but it's good I suppose to see that my inaction has had environmental benefits, or to be more accurate at least avoided further environmental harm.

    Any other pet owners moved to comment on this?

    #2
    That is disturbing, and natural remedies need to be found/developed/promoted. Like you, I’ve been using the spot treatment infrequently (once a year or so in my case) but will stop now. Both my current and past cats absolutely hated it and it smells foul.

    There’s a treatment that goes in their food, that can’t be as bad, surely?

    Comment


      #3
      I would assume it's dogs jumping in rivers (and being routinely bathed and shampood) that is a bigger part of the problem than cats. My cats, certainly, steer well clear of rivers, even after frontlining. And the idea of bathing them would require chainmail and protective cages.

      Comment


        #4
        I'm not so sure. The toxins will somehow get off/out of the cats, in their urine or whatever, and go into the earth, eventually to find their way via the groundwater system to the rivers. It's a lot slower than being washed off directly into a river by bathing, but that may be the only relevant difference.

        Comment


          #5
          We've only had a flea problem once and it was traced to a plumber bringing them into our house on his boots, possibly from his dog. We treated the cats for a fortnight but have not needed to since. The annual treatment thing seems like something we could do via the vet when they have their rabies jabs.

          The biggest environmental menace of cats in Florida is that they kill the lizards who help to control the mosquito population, thus increasing the 'need' for crop sprayers, whose damage to the environment must be immense.

          Then of course there's loss of habitat to the new homes built to house families that often consist of one person plus a cat (no offence, I'm referring here to the house being far to big for a household that would fit into a flat).
          Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 17-11-2020, 13:26.

          Comment


            #6
            We avoid flea treatments as much as possible and regularly brush our dogs, though as Max is short-haired any flea would stand out a mile. Mia the cat loves the flea comb and in 9 years of owning her, we've not found a single one (there thats jinked it), despite her love of bringing live birds and mice into the house. At around the time of their annual booster, they will get a flea treatment then as we feel that monthly is unneccesary and expensive.

            Comment


              #7
              My dog gets comboguard once a month that supposedly protects against fleas, ticks and heartworm. It has two active ingredients, milbemycin oxime for the worms and spinosad for the insects.
              Spinosad is a natural product (from a bacteria) that a quick googling suggests breaks down fairly rapidly in the environment and is of low risk to bees, though the googling wasn't thorough enough for me to say who was funding the research that gave these results and how independent any of it is.

              Comment


                #8
                Like EEG's, our cats are on a monthly treatment plan but the gaps between our getting round to administering it are much longer in practice. The brand (Broadline) is a fipronil based formula. They're due a check up soon so I'll raise it with the vet, who has always been quite good about not pushing unnecessary stuff in the past. The monthly plan is a new thing, or wasn't suggested for our old cat who died last year at least, which may be linked to the practice having been absorbed into a chain since then.

                Comment


                  #9
                  We use vectra. It's got Dinitefuran, Pyriproxyfen, Permethrin. It's potentially toxic to cats, but there are no cats here. I don't know about insects in the environment, but so little of it actually comes off of him into the environment that I can't imagine it does much.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                    We use vectra. It's got Dinitefuran, Pyriproxyfen, Permethrin. It's potentially toxic to cats, but there are no cats here. I don't know about insects in the environment, but so little of it actually comes off of him into the environment that I can't imagine it does much.
                    It's probably when every dog in the area is shedding tiny amounts that it adds up, rather than one particular dog spreading a swathe of insect destruction.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      We don't even come close to monthly treatments. Deedee is a longhair so is brushed and flea-combed around twice a week. As a result she only gets a flea treatment when they appear. Snowy got his first flea treatment a couple of weeks back and seems much happier for it as he was previously scratching and nagging quite a bit. He's a stray who is now coming into the house to eat so we had to give him a precautionary treatment.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X