Dogs have fleas, does cat need a bath? the vet?

July 24, 2018 12:17 PM

My three monsters are currently flea bitten. We give them a flea bathe once a week, which seems to help. The cat appears to be unaffected (I haven't seen any bugs on him) - we don't have carpet but the cat tends to roughhouse with the dogs. Should give him a flea bath too?

I've heard that cats can get worms from fleas too - I haven't noticed any in his droppings, should I be concerned even if I don't see anything?

Everyone's getting a vet visit soon, but I have to wait a month for my college disbursement funds. Will they be fine for a month?

posted by Sotha Sil to Pets & Animals (14 answers total)

Cats can and do get fleas. Are you treating your home as well? Fleas can survive without direct contact with a host for a while. So just bathing the dogs every week is unlikely to be enough to clear the infestation.
posted by koahiatamadl at 12:31 PM on July 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

Any reason why you can’t dose all the pets with frontline or equivalent? They do probably keep passing them around to each other.
posted by lydhre at 12:48 PM on July 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

IANAV and you can call yours for advice even though you don't have an appt yet.

Do some research on the lifecycle of fleas. Long story short, yes your cat has fleas, too. Treating your home with chemicals can be avoided by (a) treating your pets with a once per month PRESCIPTION ONLY topical treatment and vacuuming everything daily, including anything upholstered that may carry eggs, washing and drying all linens in a hot dryer, etc..

I don't know about treatments for dogs. I do know about cats. I do know you must get species specific treatments. Also, OTC topical treatments have a rep for being dangerous, so don't try them.

Revolution has been my feline treatment when needed, and honestly, I've never needed to apply it more than once per season despite the fact that my cats are indoor/outdoor. YMMV. You may be able to buy a single dose somewhere? Usually it comes in packs of 3.

Research dog treatments. I'm not a fan of Frontline for cats, but maybe for dogs it is OK?

When you visit the vet, I think maybe they will give a treatment of a med called capstar to all of your pets? Maybe just the cat?? It is a pill that kills all living fleas at the time of treatment, it does not kill anything that hatches post treatment. That's where a monthly topical like Revolution comes in.

Dogs go outside. It's probably wise to consider researching effective and safe prescription canine monthly topical treatments you can keep up with at home and discuss your brand choice with your vet.

- Is there a veterinary school in your area? You may be able to get a discount appointment there you can afford right away.

- Ditto nonprofit animal veterinary resources in your area. Research!

Because Amazon has become such a sh$t show in terms of not regulating sellers, counterfeit and out of date products, I do not recommend sourcing these meds yourself from dodgy sellers without a prescription or input from your vet.

Do call your vet and see what low cost options are available, ditto any orgs or vet schools in your area. No one wants your pets to suffer and I am CERTAIN you can find a solution now.
posted by jbenben at 12:52 PM on July 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Maybe ask your vet about a payment plan. You do not want to have a house full of fleas before you start treating them.
posted by amtho at 1:07 PM on July 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Cat and dog fleas are different species. The cat won’t be affected by the dog infestation.
posted by zadcat at 1:24 PM on July 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Cat fleas can infest dogs and humans.

https://www.orkin.com/other/fleas/are-cat-fleas-and-dog-fleas-the-same/
posted by Splunge at 2:21 PM on July 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

Your cat probably has fleas too.

Check into Care Credit - it'd let you get treatment now so your pets (and you) don't have to suffer from flea bites and pay it later. If you spend over certain amounts (about $600 iirc), you get up to 2 years of no interest to pay off a purchase.
posted by bookdragoness at 2:29 PM on July 24, 2018

Seresto collars work far better than the drops did on my pup; they have cat collars, too, and friends have had similiar good experiences with them. They last 8 months, and end up being way cheaper than the drops (and more effective in my experience).
posted by OneSmartMonkey at 2:39 PM on July 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Another Seresto convert here. If you can swing them when you get your check, they're worth every penny and do end up costing less than monthly treatments. If one animal in my apartment building gets fleas, somehow they all do, and the Seresto collars have been a life-changer.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:14 PM on July 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yes Seresto!!! We and our dog were getting a lot of flea biets although the dog is on Comfortis oral flea meds (very effective). A few days after the cat got a Seresto collar the bites stopped. The Seresto package says it lasts eight months, and we know it ceases to work soon after eight months because we start getting bitten again.
posted by anadem at 5:32 PM on July 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

PS where are the pics???
posted by anadem at 5:33 PM on July 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Just want to note loudly : FLEA TREATMENTS FOR DOGS ARE TOXIC/FATAL FOR CATS. Be very careful about cross contamination. A prescription treatment may be better, but after our cat brought home fleas last year, a combination of flea shampoo and topical OTC drops (Hartz brand most recently) for both cat and dogs finally got rid of them, and continued use of the drops has kept them flea free this season.

A few things to keep in mind: topical flea treatments ARE powerful pesticides and neurotoxins. The cat had a bad reaction to one brand of flea treatment (sorry, can't remember the name) so now we only give her half a dose. Unfortunately treatment is necessary with an outdoor cat in a wooded area. But it's best to limit the use of these chemicals as much as possible.

For us that means monthly treatments in summer, but stretching it out to three months or longer the rest of the year. It's definitely possible for them to have fleas without there being any bugs noticeable. With the dogs scratching was the first and most persistent sign. With the cat it was less obvious, even though she was the one that first brought them in.
posted by catatethebird at 5:53 PM on July 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

You can do a topical treatment on the back of the cat's neck. You need to buy one specifically for cats, not one for dogs. (Sometimes it's the same brand, but the formulation and dosage are different). This is much easier than trying to bathe a cat, and it's safer than the flea collars, which are not recommended for cats.

The back of the neck treatment works for about a month, and it stops the fleas from being able to reproduce, as well as killing them. So if you can get all your animals treated this way and keep it up, you can get on top of the problem.

You can buy the treatments (here in Australia anyway) without a vet visit, from pet shops, even supermarkets, or from vet offices without actually seeing a vet. Here they cost about $40 for six months' worth of treatments.

Be aware that some fleas have developed resistances to some of the older treatments. Capstar, Frontline, Advocate, and Revolution, for example, don't work for the fleas my cat sometimes gets. But Activyl works, and Comfortis works (but that's a tablet and my cat is hard to pill). The other thing that works is a simple flea comb. If your cat likes to be combed or brushed, this is seriously the best. Costs like $8, and my cat comes to find me to be combed whenever I am sitting on the sofa. If she had her way she'd be combed three or four times a day. When I first started doing this, I'd find the occasional flea and lots of eggs, but now I never find any, and I've actually stopped using the preventative flea treatments months ago because she seems to stay flea free.

You should also worm the cat every 6 months whether you find fleas or not. And even if you don't see worms. It doesn't hurt, and again you can buy worming tablets (or paste that you mix with the food) without visiting the vet.
posted by lollusc at 10:12 PM on July 24, 2018

I'm in the US and having to have a vet visit and prescription for treatments like Revolution are very expensive, I order the treatments from Australia without the vet visit and script as lollusc said. The treatments themselves are less than half the cost of buying them in the US. Shipping is around $5 US and takes about a week to arrive at most.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 2:34 AM on July 25, 2018