With one adult cat, a litter of kittens (now gone) and one dog living in the house, we developed a flea problem this summer. Kittens generally can’t be treated with any pesticide type product and they end up becoming furry little flea factories, infesting the healthy adult animals that normally don’t have a major flea problem. In trying to get the situation under control, I started with some “natural” products, based on use of herbal essential oils while the kittens were still here. They weren’t very effective with that level of infestation. Here are two products we tried:
Cloud-Nine Herbal Dip 1/2oz (by Halo )
This product is a 1/2 ounce bottle of mixed herbal essential oils to be used in several ways. It can be mixed with shampoo for bathing the animal. It can also be mixed with water and sprayed on. Finally, it can be applied to the color to make a flea repellent collar. The product was successful in taking the fleas on the adult dog from an extremely severe level to a moderate problem. That said, I used a combination of all three methods to achieve this and the shampoo was probably most effective. No big surprise there since any soap will kill fleas if it’s simply left on for several minutes - the fleas get stuck in the soap and essentially drown. If the product was really effective as a repellent, two baths two days apart with the stuff, followed by twice daily spraying and application to the dogs collar should have meant virtually no fleas on the dog. It didn’t. While this product is probably good to have around as part of a program for regular preventive use, it just doesn’t cut it for bringing an established infestation under control. On the plus side, it contains citronella oil which definitely does repel mosquitoes, the carrier of heartworms. Of course, it’s no replacement for a heartworm preventative, but it ought to at least spare the pet the annoyance of mosquito bites.
Nature’s Guardian:
The second natural product was Sergeant’s Nature’s Guardian. This is another essential oils based product, though the oil mix is different and the method of application also differs. It’s applied the same way as many of the commercial pesticide products - cut off the top of the dispenser and apply in a line from between the shoulder blades to the tail. Supposedly the oils will spread throughout all the fur by a process called “wicking”, the same claim made for the pesticide products. Maybe for some pets, but for a pug dog wicking is a myth. The product is claimed to work for “up to one month but can be applied as often as every two weeks.” It also claims to kill and repel ticks and mosquitoes, but this formula doesn’t contain citronella, so I would use Cloud Nine.
The one thing that both Cloud Nine and Nature’s Guardian did was smell really good, because of the spice oils that are their main ingredients. The Cloud Nine was a much milder scent; the Nature’s Guardian would really improve the smell of even a stinky dog.
Another interesting note was that neither of the products contained lavender oil or pennyroyal extract, both of which are reputed to repel, if not outright kill, fleas. I actually found that a few drops of lavender oil is about as effective as either of these products.
Next I tried Hartz 4-in-1 Flea & Tick Drops Plus. This is a pesticide product containing phenothrin, a product to kill adult fleas, and methoprene, an insect growth regulator to prevent flea eggs and larvae from maturing. It works by the shoulder blade to tail “wicking” method. In other words, in our case, it doesn’t work.
So, what did work?
Capstar
The downside to Capstar is that at a cost of roughly $3.5 per dose, it would cost over $100 a month to treat a single pet with Capstar alone. It’s recommended to use it with a product like Frontline Plus
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