fleas & frontline issues

We have been battling a flea problem of epic proportions. We have 2 labs (11 yrs & 8 yrs) and 2 indoor cats (13 yrs & 4 yrs) as well as 2 guinea pigs. The dogs obviously brought them in and everybody got them. We used Frontline but heard from our vet that they are hearing from lots of people that it is not as effective as it once was.

Is anyone else finding this? Is anyone finding the fleas were big problem this year? We live in New England and we never put frontline (or anything) on the cats because they are inside cats. They had the biggest flea problem. We eventually put everyone on advantage and now the problem seems to be abating. I'm using a flea comb daily and put borax everywhere.

Since we never had fleas before will the cold kill them off or what?

You need to treat your pets for at least 3 months with a flea product to stop the flea cycle.

As far as frontlines effectiveness, I used it for tick control when we went on some camping trips and have been happy with it. It actually says the flea control lasts for 3 months on the box, so in theory you don't even have to treat your pets with it every month.


I personally use revolution on my pets, not every month but intermittently because I'm a bad mom and I have had no flea issues, and I have 3 dogs and a cat.

Research has shown that Frontline has DEFINITELY become less effective. In a lab test with Capstar, Frontline, Advantage, and Revolution, Frontline was definitely the worst. Revolution was the forerunner. This was a feline only study. Basically, fleas are becoming immune to Frontline. It seems to do the trick in northern areas where fleas aren't such a huge problem, but in the southern US (flea country!) it's just not kicking it anymore. As far as flea prevention for dogs I love Comfortis, which is a relatively new monthly tablet flea treatment.

As mentioned above, when you have this big of a flea problem you must keep all animals on flea prevention for at least 3 months simply because of the fleas long life cycle. My suggestion is dose EVERYBODY with capstar and your monthly flea prevention of choice. Vacuum like crazy, wash all linens, etc. Give another capstar to everybody two days after. Vacuum, vacuum, vacuum. Treat the yard as well so your doggies won't keep tracking in adults/eggs/larvae. Keep them on their monthly flea prevention for at least another two months.

Best of luck and sending bad vibes for your fleas,

Lately Frontline has not worked for my pets. Advantage has been working fine. I would get all the pets on a different flea killer. Even if it gets cold you have got to stop the cycle in the house asap.

I found the frontline to do a poor job so switched to advantage for the cats and had better success. Now I'm switching to using DE for our outside cat Ginger as well as to treat parasites for all the cats.

Leslie