PSA: Anywhere there are cats or wild animals (like squirrels, racoons, etc) tends to have healthy flea populations throughout the environment.

I give my dogs a special "cookie" quarterly which makes it so any flea that bites them becomes sterile and makes doggos no longer a vector.

Few things are worse than tiny almost invisible pests in your home or living on / biting loved ones!

Is it homemade or something that can be bought OTC?

Bravecto.

My (terrific and marvelously overqualified) vet said OTC products are like pissing on a forest fire.

https://us.bravecto.com/

Requires an Rx, but can be obtained from your vet, Chewy, etc.

I hate to provide free advertising, but that's the only thing that finally solved fleas and ticks for good.

Think multiple ticks making little towers on top of one another between toes, after every walk. That's the kind of thing we had to contend with. Completely gone.

> Bravecto

My exact experience, both for dog (the pill) and cats (the messy stuff smeared onto the skin at the back of the neck). Problem solved, period. No ticks, no fleas, and no noticeable side-effects save for about a day of apparent nausea for my dog now that he is very old.

Of course it's only a question of time before some blood-gorged tick somewhere will show up alive and healthy and thriving on Bravecto.

It's interesting that you describe it as controlled. We always used Bravecto right OTC for our pets (Australian here).

https://peto.com.au/bravecto-plus-flea-tick-and-worming-trea...

I order it from Aus to the US because I am ideologically opposed to veterinary RX (outside of controlled meds) and its cheaper by 40% too.

Having to pay for a vet rx for worming meds or bravecto etc is a fucking scam.

+1 for Bravecto from me, too. It was suggested by our (wonderful) vet and it seems to do its job perfectly fine.

Did you use flea preventative care before this happened? If so, what brand did you use? I am curious if various type of flea preventative care has different impacts on those fleas. My GSD is on Simparica (monthly oral med) and never got the fleas from the dog park. My GSD goes there bi-weekly for exercise and improving dog socialization.

To be honest I didn't have them on flea preventatives. I never had an issue with fleas until the past year going to a popular dog park in a temperate area (which I guess means the fleas can live longer than say a desert).

Now I have them on the monthly NexGard chewables (prescription from the vet). I havent seen a flea on or off of them in months.

I am not sold on giving our dog oral flea pesticide. We’ve been able to git rid of fleas by increased cleaning (vacuuming all areas once per day), changing the dog’s bedding frequently, and spot removing the adult fleas. Effectively, you want to break the flea life cycle. It is doable without medication, but it requires high levels of upkeep.

Yeah our current dog has barely ever been to the dog park, we decided to change it up and bring her there. A day or two later and she has kennel cough.

But I also think our dog has a bad immune system. We pet sit a dog for 5-6 hours and it had a bit of a sneeze. We all just thought it was allergies because it was a young dog and the vet assumed it was allergies. Well a day or two later again and our dog has a sneeze, tons of green snot, and our vet suspected it was a bad infection, possibly pneumonia. She is only just about 2 years old and already seems to be getting any disease she gets near.

We stopped going to the dog park, because that’s where you take your dog if you want to learn bad behavior. The cleanliness of our local wasn’t really an issue. But I’m glad we stopped going. Asking for trouble sometimes.