Fleas/flea allergies - what do you use?

Anyone else have a dog that is allergic to fleas?

Tilly (Yorkie, 22 months) apparently is, according to our vet this morning. Getting bitten by the little nasties causes a bad reaction in her...pretty much non-stop licking/biting resulting in raw skin. My other two dogs do not appear to have fleas (or, if they do, they are not affected by them) and nor do the cats. I routinely Frontline them every few months but it doesn't seem to work with Tilly. I've also tried Advantage and again, it doesn't seem to have much of an effect. Even upping the treatment for Tilly from every 2-3 months to every month has done very little.

I've been given a spray bottle of Frontline rather than the spot-ons which I am supposed to spray her with every two weeks. I used to do this with our old cat who was allergic to fleas and it did work. But, I'm concerned about doing this long term...it cannot be good dousing a dog in chemicals every two weeks?

Our house is all hardwood floors except the stairs. All surfaces are hoovered and washed regularly, and I also spray the stairs carpet with anti-flea stuff occasionally. All sofa throws, cushion covers and dog beds are also washed regularly.

I asked the vet about using garlic or if there was anything other than chemical based treatments to fight fleas...of course she said "no" (not surprising given the profits they make off flea treatments!).

I've always used Frontline blindly because I've been skeptical about natural treatments. But, I'm now curious if anyone uses anything that isn't Frontline/Advantage but keeps the fleas at bay? any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

I don't know if this is any help but one of my dogs had this problem and was eventually referred to the veterinary school at Bristol where he spent the day having skin tests. In the end, the only thing that they could find was harvest mites and then they only found three - usually they cluster. I was given the same advice, Frontline spray every two weeks starting before the season and going on after. Like you, I wasn't happy about spraying him with so many chemicals and found myself doing it less and less. Eventually he grew out of it and now is just treated with the spot on like the others. At the time though, he would like and nibble his front legs so much they became infected.

My late Cocker had a flea allergy and was just treated with frontline combo and antibiotics if i remember right and she never had another problem after that.

There is a good natural flea remedy, it is a garlic based product and definately works. It is also good for keeping healthy flora in the GI tract. "Bug Off Garlic Powder" I am in the US so not sure if you can get it in the UK, but with the world being as small as it is these days I am sure you can

I heard that raw garlic is bad for dogs and that regular cooking garlic powder loses some of its benefits during processing. The Bug Off Garlic powder uses a specific garlic bulb and is processed in such a way that it retains more of the stuff that makes it good for dogs (for health benefits and as a bug repellant).

Here’s the link if you want to read up on it from the official site:

http://www.springtimeinc.com/product..._garlic_d/dogs

Are we allowed to post links? if not sorry mods please remove it!!

Good Luck.

Thank you. I really hope she does 'grow out' of it, but my cat never did!

The spot on or the spray? how often did you have to do it?

Thank you, I'll check it out. I actually have heard the product mentioned on a mainly American dog forum I used to frequent. I'll see if they do it over here.

The spot on and i only had to do it the normal once which sorted it.
She had bald patches from biting and itching before i took her to the vets.