So Kody and I are just getting over our first battle with fleas. I had never dealt with fleas before as my childhood dog never had fleas. About 3 weeks ago, I found a flea on Kody. Since I had never seen a flea before at first I didn’t know what it was, but when I pulled it off him and it jumped, I knew it was a flea. For a first timer, this is a moment of great panic and vulnerability. It was in the evening so I couldn’t call the vet. I got online and did about 6 hours of research. I found out about Advantage, Revolution, and Frontline. I came to the conclusion that Advantage was the best idea because it had no listed side effects and the reviews on multiple sites were highest for Advantage.
Along with that I read of horror stories of having to flea bomb your home, flea bomb the yard, and all sorts of hopeless scenarios involving washing everything and fleas still being present. Oddly the most comforting thing online came from Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer. He said to give your dog Advantage and then just let it go everywhere it normally goes and it will eventually kill all the fleas. It was nice to hear a calm voice in all of my internal panic.
I was a little nervous about touching Kody, but I think I caught it very soon because I didn’t find more fleas on him. I thought about whether he should sleep in bed with me that night. I decided that he should because he did the night before and things were fine. However after about an hour or two and him getting up to scratch, I just couldn’t take the stress of worrying about it and he slept in his crate for the rest of the night. Thank goodness he likes his crate, he didn’t seem to mind at all. Stay tuned for more about… the Fleapocalypse!!!
The other posts in this series