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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Feb 16 2011 at 8:42am | IP Logged
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Our dog, for whatever reason, has really bad fleas right now. I've banished her to the garage (so my kids all think I'm mean) but I saw one jump on the place where she often lays here in the house. EWE! I don't want to use a chemical because the kids are always hugging her. Now I'm afraid if they are on her bedding they might be elsewhere in the house.  Is there an essential oil or anything natural that will repel fleas?
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Becky
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SeaStar
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| Posted: Feb 16 2011 at 7:26pm | IP Logged
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Becky,
People try all kinds of natural remedies to repel fleas: garlic, etc.
I don't think any of them really work all that well.
What you can do is vacuum, vacuum, vacuum in the house (and immediately toss the bag in an outside trash can). That will pick up flea eggs and prevent them from hatching in your house. Also, wash any bedding she has contact with in hot water.
Topical flea treatments like Advantage are probably one of the better choices for something to put on your dog. Just avoid petting her for about 24 hours after application; then she should be fine.
The active ingredient in Advantage (imidicloprid) is also used on food crops; most of us eat it every day. I know that is .
Fleas are also . They carry tape worms. With a baby who is on the floor or soon will be, you just want the fleas to be gone.
Fleas can be really tough to get rid of, and they can live in your yard, especially if you have squirrels (but this is not a reason to hate squirrels more, Mary. It is not their fault!!  )
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cathhomeschool
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Our dogs (we just got them...and one had tape worms even *after* being de-wormed and having his poop checked after being de-wormed...  ) Anyway... our dogs take a pill (comfortis, I think) for flees. It's not cheap, but I prefer it to the topical, which we only did once.
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JodieLyn
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I've heard that using salt on the carpets can help with vacuuming up the fleas.. but you have to leave it down for a while.. it apparently dries them up so needs some time to work.. and of course that only helps if you get rid of them off the pet first.
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Angi
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Conmfortis is an oral flea med that seems to work well.
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lapazfarm
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I've heard that diatomaceous earth works well, sprinkled on pet and bedding. I'm pretty anti-chemical, BUT...
We used Advantage.
Fleas are so hard to get rid of once they get a hold in your house, esp with carpeting. The trick is to treat the dog with something that works continuously, like Advantage, so that they do not just get re-infested after treatment (which can easily happen with topical remedies like flea shampoos).
Good luck.
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Feb 17 2011 at 2:13pm | IP Logged
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Thanks everyone. Advantage was my first thought, then I started worrying about the chemical thing. I think it might be better than dealing with fleas again and again though!
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Becky
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Mackfam
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Becky,
When we got our new pups I did not want to use topical flea protection. We asked our vet about other non-topical options for when our new pups will be ready for flea protection and he suggested a pill form of protection called Comfortis. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case you didn't know about it. I haven't read your entire thread, so forgive me if I'm duplicating a suggestion already.
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Jen Mackintosh
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ALmom
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Are they in the house (fleas) - or are you just looking for preventative? I can tell you it is totally not worth ending up with fleas in the house, they take forever to get rid of. Vacuuming many times per day - every room, washing everything in hot water, treating upholstered furniture and under carpets. We used borax and vacuumed like crazy, plus caught the buggers using desk lamps and shallow dishes of hot soapy water. They have been gone, gone, gone and we will never ever forget our dog's flea treatment again - no matter how insane life gets.
Somewhere in there our youngest ended up with a swollen windpipe - looking back I wonder whether it was the flea chemicals that we suspect were overdone by the "professionals"(we moved to my mom's for a few days at one point) and didn't work or the borax that we put under the carpet.
As far as whatever they carry - I guess we were lucky on that front. All my boys were competing to see who caught most fleas - by hand - as they were hopping up to the light or water. No trouble with worms on either dog or people front, but the boys were handling the fleas daily - often many times a day.
Fleas were truely awful 
and you began to feel like you were a leper. Our son had so many flea bites on his leg it looked terrible - think our dentist wanted to ask a few questions and .... Thankfully both the poison ivy and flea bites went away and we knew the dentist well enough that the boys were quite talkative about things --- oh but use something to keep the fleas away or keep the dog outside at all times.
Oh that is the other thing - when you treat the dog with the bath and flea preventive after house infestation - the buggers have nowhere else to get dinner except the people. They also create a particular itch that can remain an expensive problem for your dog. We have learned a hard lesson on this one.
I like Jen's idea - then no one has to rub in and you don't have to worry about young ones getting the chemicals from frontline or those other products if you are just looking for preventative.
Janet
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Becky Parker
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| Posted: Feb 18 2011 at 10:26am | IP Logged
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Thanks for the Comfortis suggestion and the link Angi and Jen. I will look into it.
Janet, that is what I am so afraid of! She is officially an outside dog at this point and her bedding is now gone. I just hope none of them took up residence in the carpet. I'm getting some borax today, just to be safe!
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Becky
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SeaStar
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I think the borax has to sit on your carpet for awhile (48hrs?) to be effective, so that is something to consider before you sprinkle it everywhere.
Good luck on your flea hunt!
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
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ALmom
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Also, if you have toddlers who will be crawling or laying all over the carpet, borax is not totally safe even if it is a laundry booster. It can be a respiratory irritant. You may want to look it up on-line first. (I didn't think of the borax being a problem because we primarily peeled the edges of the carpet up and put it under the carpet along the exterior walls and in crevices of furniture, not on the surfaces while we were there. I still had a child that I think reacted to it.
I really do think that this is the cause of our Youngest's swollen windpipe. That ER visit was really scarey and very much like a severe asthma attack except that it came on suddenly - and baffled everyone including docs as there wasn't any real cause determined. Since he had a virus at the time (cold and low grade fever earlier which he had not complained about except stuffy nose) it got recorded as viral croup. We spent overnight in the hospital with a doctor who is normally extremely laid back.
I didn't connect things until we had a 2nd incident, thankfully much more minor - but it was after this child had been trained for laundry and was taking over the chore. He, unknown to us, was adding in borax. He no longer does the laundry and I'm a bit leary of using the borax anymore when there may be littles crawling around - and after our first scare, not around this particular child.
It did do wonders on keeping all kinds of bugs out of our house though and completely solved our flea issue when nothing else would - just keep the borax dust down, don't have littles sprawling in the carpet, etc. and if you aren't even sure you have fleas, I think I'd use another tactic - like soapy water with lights.
If you only have a few or you are uncertain if you have any - you could do a shallow pan with soapy water and lights overnight., You don't have to catch them by hand (our boys were just being boys and competing to catch them before they landed in the water - and we were counting them to prove to the pest control people that they really had not solved our problem), the fleas drown themselves in the water trying to get to the light reflected and the soap keeps them from hopping back out. Then you just dump the soapy water and refill and repeat until there are no more fleas turning up in the water. It sounds like you know the room where the dog was - with his bedding which is the most likely place the fleas would be if you had them. If there are fleas at all in the room, you'll see some in the water. If the room is a larger one, you may want to set up more water traps. To estimate how many you have - multiply what you see by at least 100.
We knew when our fleas were gone, when we no longer saw any in the water for several days. We've never had another problem.
Sounds like maybe - hopefully you nipped it before it is a problem and can verify that pretty quickly and ease your mind.
Janet
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4Real Forums : Exploring God's Creation in Nature and Science
Topic: natural flea repellant
