I often get asked to explain why I recommend some flea products and not others. So today for those who believe all products are the same, I present: “Fleas R Us” – a Play in three acts.
Act I – Useless But Very Honest
Imagine a product sold in all major Australian supermarkets (and not a cheap one either) as a cleat treatment. Would you believe me if I told you is kills no fleas at all? What it it told you do on the label. At the back, in small print.
Here it is:
So how many fleas does it kill? Zero! None! Remembering that your dog would most probably pick up more fleas every day at the park, using this product would make absolutely no difference. But you can’t blame them for lying because they told you so on the label.
Act II – Makes You Feel Better (Don’t Know About The Fleas)
OK, this product does kill fleas. It doesn’t kill any other life stages of the flea, and given less then 10% of a flea population are adults, one again this will not get rid of your dog or cat’s flea problem.
Act III – The Same, but without the photograph
This one is a slightly different story. This product’s active ingredient is Fipronil, so it’s exactly the same as Frontline, minus the Doctor Harry photo on the front. Now I quite like Doctor Harry and consider him a bit of a hero of mine, but this is not an article about my hero’s, but about saving you money. And it’s amazing how much cheaper a product becomes once you remove Doctor Harry’s photo from it. Then again, did someone say ‘Cheaper’?
Here is a product I found in my local hardware. Now I am not suggesting that you apply this on your pets of course, but given that this is exactly the same ingredient (only about 100 times cheaper), the word ‘rip-off’ does come readily to mind.
If you are looking for a list of flea reduces which actually work, please drop me a line.
Dr Vadim the Visiting Vet 