Anyone else having trouble with Frontline?

[willowgirl]

Starting last year, we noticed that it doesn't seem to work very well anymore. It's depressing to still find fleas on the cats and dogs while spending $200 a month on Frontline.

Anyone else have the same problem, and if so, what did you switch to?

[Skandi]

$200! how many animals do you have?! We deflea ours twice a year tops and we do use frontline, not had an issue with it so cannot help you. Could read the packet see which chemicals it is and then do an internet search for medicine with different ones in?

[willowgirl]

We have 9 in the house, 7 cats and 2 dogs. Numb and I are both paranoid about fleas ... he's even worse than I am; whenever he finds a flea on one of the indoor critters, he dusts the whole house with boric acid powder and won't let me vacuum for days. It looks like a bag of flour exploded ... I hate it. I'm fussy about my house! We also Capstar everyone when we find a flea. The place where we buy Capstar (www.littlecitydogs.com) has an accompanying product that kills the egg and larvae stages and we're thinking of switching to that instead of the Frontline.

One of our dogs has a flea allergy and is just miserable whenever he gets bitten.

[Deleted]

Frontline is totally not working here, either.

We're spraying the house, vacuuming like crazy, and sprinkling borax all over the floors and furniture.

We've been using Pyranha shampoo for the dogs, and giving dogs and cats capstar.

Our 10 year old American Bulldog, Tank, is allergic to just about everything. Poor dude is so miserable.

[aoconnor]

I have never had Frontline work successfully for my dogs/cats. I use Advantage for both dogs and cats and it works quite well.

[countrymom22]

As a groomer I can tell you that in some areas they are reporting that the fleas have become Frontline resistant. I've had a few clients experience this. I don't remember what their vets recommended instead, but I agree with Skandi. Find something with different ingredients.

I still use Frontline and haven't had any problems, so far.

[comfortablynumb]

Since I have been heating with the wood stove now the fleas have seemed to all but have disappeared. Slugo is now free of his cone of shame that was keeping him from literally ripping holes in himself. (Odd, when he had it on, he didn't itch. Take it off and he was off to the races)

We decided to ditch frontline once Ive used it all up and I got a 100 doses of lufenuron (about a buck 75 a dose) and another 100 doses of Nitenpyram (generic Capstar $1 a dose) for the next appearance of fleas. The Lufenuron causes sterility in the adult fleas so they lay infertile eggs. The Nitenpyram kills adult/young fleas but is gone in 48hr or so.

Since I keep finding fleas.... I might as well put em on birth control then dose the critter with Nitenpyram to kill the adults once found on said critter.... the latter of which has ended up being done a few times a week anyway... we'll see if that approach works better. It sure is cheaper.

Good thing I found little city dogs, they sell in bulk and its cheap. I know the generic capstar they sell works, you can see the adult fleas stagger off the critters and drop dead within 30 min, its awesome stuff.

The outdoor cats are just going to get dusted with Zodiac, there is no way to control outdoor fleas but with contact poison.

If you can keep your floozy from vacuuming up the boric acid dust, it kills new hatched fleas and larvae down in the carpets/fabrics/cracks its worked into.

Maybe if I hide a Quaalude in a piece of cheese the dust will stay down long enough to work.

[gracielagata]

We hadn't been able to use Frontline on the east coast for years when we lived there between SC and MD. It was okay for ticks, but didn't work great on fleas. We had to use the oral Comfortis on the dogs, and hope that was herd immunity enough for our mega-geriatric cat at the time. It worked well.

Here in WA, Frontline works fine, but we don't have flea issues to start with to my knowledge, and only really have 2 months a year when ticks are an issue at all. So 1, 2 doses max, is all it takes all year long.

I have been known to use the homemade fly and tick horse spray on the dogs, as it is the same chemical as Frontline and I also add essential oils that repel ticks and bugs as well.

[solargeek]

Central Wisconsin – frontline has been working really well on the ticks and I don't know if we have fleas anywhere in the area? She is boarded regularly, but the hygiene of the place we take her to is phenomenal. And I know if they get tips or fleas they'll let us know.

When we lived in Chicago, I heard rumors it wasn't working as well there. I kind of suspected a lot of people were doing like those who are vaccinating those who don't, hoping the herd mentality would help. But if everyone is not keeping their dog up-to-date on vaccinations and things that repel ticks and fleas, everyone suffers.

It should be required that all shelters have a list of the types of medications AND THE COST to such as frontline, heart guard, and others that are required to keep a dog healthy when you adopt a pet. We love our dogs and we would've done this anyhow but they cost more than our children per year many times.

[countrymom22]

I guess we've just been lucky, but I've never had a cat with fleas even though all our cats are barn cats. Not sure why, but I'll take it. For now, the Frontline is still working here, so I'll stick with it until it stops working. Some of my clients are using a new type of flea collar that they say works great. But I can't remember what it's called. I'll ask the nest time they come in. It would be good to have the info, JIC.

[Skandi]

Nov 1, 2018 17:46:44 GMT solargeek said:

When we lived in Chicago, I heard rumors it wasn't working as well there. I kind of suspected a lot of people were doing like those who are vaccinating those who don't, hoping the herd mentality would help. But if everyone is not keeping their dog up-to-date on vaccinations and things that repel ticks and fleas, everyone suffers.

Here in Denmark vets will NOT give out flea or worm medication unless you know the animal has them, they consider it a terrible idea to "keep up to date" on flea and worm medication, medicating when not needed is one cause of resistance.

When I first came over I went to re-register my dog here, I asked about worm medication as she had always had it on "schedule" she was only 10months old so that was every 3 months, and they were horrified. In the last 5 years she's been wormed once a year on average, and only because the cat gets them and she likes to clean up after the cat.

As an aside, you cannot buy worm medication without taking the animal to the vet, flea medication you can buy over the counter.