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Years ago I occasionally dog-sat for a friend, and for flea control, that dog got a
daily treat of a clove or two of garlic, finely chopped and mashed into a small dollop of organic peanut butter. I got up enough courage to sample the mixture and it was really yucky, but the dog thought it was a fine treat. It's effectiveness as a flea repellant
was questionable.
Until about a year ago, flea combing Kitty once or twice a day was just something we did, without complaint, but even with an occasional flea-bombing of our house, the damn fleas just never went away.
But then, finally, I sent for a supply of Advantage®, which put a screetching halt
to the fleas. I was able to put Kitty's flea comb away and forget about those
nasty little buggers.
Imidacloprid is the chemical name for Advantage®.
It's actually an insect nerve-agent, and
the Germans originally developed it
to keep all sorts of bugs off of their crops, but then someone suggested that if you dab it
between the shoulder blades of a dog or cat (where they can't lick) it would be
effective in flea control, without "much" harm to the animal.
And they were right... it does work, but it has an incredibly obnoxious chemical smell, and it's pretty evident that Kitty doesn't like it one bit.
About six months ago, I was well into the planning phase of how I was going to sneak
up on Kitty and give her another application, but then I came up with an idea for an
experiment: The plan was to apply the Advantage® to a piece of cardboard,
and then shove it under our couch, thereby treating the environment instead of Kitty
directly.
The experiment has been a success so far, and hopefully
we won't have to put that awful chemical directly on Kitty's skin again.
a flealess cat...
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