Greetings Tiny’s Place fans and supporters! Here we are again with another pearl of wisdom for Cat Tails. Other than cat boarding inquiries, we receive a lot of calls for basic cat health questions as well. Since Denise has been a Certified Veterinary Technician since 1994, she has a fairly deep well of knowledge from which to share. The question we get most often is “Do you do flea baths at Tiny’s Place?” We can, and we have, but is a bath going to be good enough? No.

Denise attended the Veterinary Technician program at Portland Community College. At the time the parasitology teacher was Dr. Randall Haveman, and his class was a program favorite. If you walked out of that class knowing NOTHING else, you would have needed to be sound asleep the entire class to not have retained “YOU MUST TREAT THE ENVIRONMENT!” You can NOT achieve freedom from fleas for your pets if you don’t treat the environment as well. Period.

You saw a few fleas on your cat, so you took it for a bath. Problem solved, right? Wrong. If your cat had visible fleas while living in your house, there are most likely thousands (yes, thousands) more larva and fleas that you aren’t seeing. Ok. So you saw fleas on your cat, and you accept there may be thousands more in your house. Now what? Easy peasy! Follow these steps, be thorough and don’t forget the 30 day follow up, and you will never have a flea problem in your house again. We are speaking from experience BTW. We haven’t washed a cat since Advantage came out in 1997…

Step 1: Planning. Optimally find a place to take ALL your pets for a flea bath for the day. This way we can get all the flea dirt cleaned off them and be starting fresh. (Definition of flea dirt, is the black flecks you will see on your pets skin when they have fleas. It is digested blood that the fleas have excreted on your pet after they have fed. Yuck.) There is a product called Capstar that is extremely safe and extremely effective. We’ve seen it in action in the Vet clinic. The fleas literally start falling off the pet within about 10 minutes of administration. Alas, the effect only lasts for 24 hours. This pill is designed to kill all existing fleas on the pet, but has no deterrent ability. We suggest you give this to your cats prior to loading them in the car. This way you know you aren’t loading live, healthy fleas into your car. If you choose to skip this step, then make a note that you are going to include your car in your vacuum and spraying module.

Speaking of spray, you’ll need to order that and make sure you have it on hand prior to your big day. There are a lot of knock off products out there, maybe some of them even work…That said, we are recommending the products we know from experience are safe, Veterinary grade and effective. The product we like to use is called Knockout ES. It’s safe for furniture and pets, is odor free and there is no need to evacuate for the day as you do with “bombs”. The misconception with flea bombs is that they have some great chemical that envelopes your home and kills all the fleas. That is not true. A bomb shoots up and has a radius. It doesn’t get under the bed, in the closet, under the couch cushions, etc…We repeat, it shoots up and within a certain radius. Unless you are treating an empty room they are just not that effective. Save your money. 1 can of Knockout ES treats 2000 sq feet for under $30.

Step 2: You have all your products in hand, you’ve gotten all the pets off to the groomer for a bath, and now you are back home. Let’s strip all the bedding from all the places the pets like to sleep and throw that in the wash and let’s vacuum. Be very thorough with the vacuum and go in the closets, under the bed, move the couch and vacuum under that, etc. The more thorough you are this time, the higher the chances you won’t ever have to do this again.

When you are finished vacuuming, spray a hit of your Knockout spray into the vacuum. This way all the fleas and larva you just sucked up will be killed in the vacuum bag or container.

Step 3: If you have birds or fish it is recommended you cover the aquarium and move the birds to a different room from where you are spraying. Birds are very sensitive and we need to be ultra cautious for them.

Step 4: Spray. We like to go around the outside of the room and spray the perimeter first, similar to outlining a picture before you color it. Then with a sweeping arm motion and walking backwards out of the room, spray the center of the room. As previously mentioned, be sure to spray in closets, under the bed, between the mattresses, under the couch, etc…Again, the more thorough you are this time, the less likely you will have to do it again. And another Dr. Haveman saying was, “Don’t spray angry! You don’t have to drench things, just a nice mist over everything should do the job. The can is designed to do 2000 sq ft. Let it!”

Step 5: Whew! You are almost done. Now you can put the sheets back on the bed, move the furniture back where it belongs and go get your pets! Mark your calendar for 2 days in the future, which is when you can apply the Advantage to all your pets. ALL YOUR PETS is a critical statement as well. You can’t just treat the pet you saw fleas on, it’s all or nothing here.

Step 6: Set your calendar for 30 days in the future and plan to spray your house 1 more time. You don’t have to take the pets for another bath, but they will be due for their second dose of Advantage, so make sure you apply that. Repeat the steps above and vacuum and spray one more time. The reason this is a critical step is because there is no product on the market that will kill flea eggs. They kill adult fleas and larva, but any eggs that may have survived your first cleaning effort will be due to hatch at 30 days, which is why the second coat of spray. Finish that and Voila! You are done!

Things to remember so you truly don’t have to do all this again:

  • Leave your cats on some sort of Veterinary approved flea medication year round. If you live in the Pacific NW, it never really gets cold enough to kill the fleas off in the winter, so they truly are a year round pest. Just get in the habit of treating at the intervals suggested by the product you are using. If it’s Advantage, that is monthly.
  • There are other products you can get from your Vet that have longer intervals than 30 days. We suggested Advantage because it’s a good product you can buy over the counter without an RX. There are many other products available from excellent manufacturers. Please use the product your Vet and you feel comfortable with.
  • If you had dogs that ride in the car prior to treating the house, don’t forget you need to treat your car the same as your house on the same day. Vacuum and spray the entire interior and follow up in 30 days.
  • We keep a can of Knockout spray in our house all the time “just in case”. If somebody brings a questionable pet over, or maybe it’s spring and you’d just like to do a once over in the name of vigilance. That is never a bad idea!

And that is the end of our lengthy post. This method has worked for us for several decades, and we hope it works as well for you! Take care until next time!