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10-10-09: A warning on Flea treatment for dog & cat owners The following is an extract from an email sent to us by one of our valued members. It tells of the problems this dog owner experienced when using a certain Flea Control product on one dog. We have copied the important part as it was received by us, and we do not take any responsibility for the spelling or substance of the comments. The warning should be read with caution as the same problem may or may not happen to any of your pets. We thank the provider of this message, and we are pleased that the pet has survived this ordeal. "HELLO, Just thought I would share some information that may be useful to other members re your pets and your vet bills. I have always used Frontline flea treatment on my dogs...over the years I have had about 8 or 10 including working dogs. However recently things were a bit tight in the $ department and I purchased instead a well known supermarket brand Exelpet. I did both of my girls at 6 pm with the treatment using the little squeeze tube as indicated. At 10.30 pm. I noticed my older Dog Mahalia was breathing very noisily and salivating excessively...when I called her to me she couldn't get up. My other dog Elly was fine. My immediate thought was a tick, so I got Mahalia straight down to the vet (ours is 24/7 thank God). It turned out I had poisoned her by using the cheaper product which has apparently organ phosphates in it which some dogs are very susceptible too. The vet said another hour and it could have been too late for her. She was in hospital for 2 days on drips...so my cheaper money saving venture turned out to be not so cheap. I might add that Mahalia is an extremely healthy border collie/cattle dog cross. Never again...it is Frontline or fleas from here on! To be fair the Exelpet does not affect all dogs in this manner, as I said my other little girl a Staffy was fine. But the reason for the disparity in price between the two products is the organo phosphates used in the cheaper product. On the plus side, living in Queensland, I changed all my house insurances over some time ago to RACQ as they offer Pet Insurance for a few extra dollars a week they will cover your pets up to a Maximum of $500 per event. As a result of the previous poisoning incident poor Mahalia seemed to come down with any number of ailments...plus a fight with another dog where her lip was badly torn...all in all nearly $2000 of vet bills over a two week period of which RACQ paid out almost $1500. Needless to say I will remain with RACQ for that reason. Medibank Private also now offers pet insurance for a very reasonable rate and I believe gives a 10% discount if they are your Health Insurer. Having Pet Insurance certainly removes the worry from your mind if anything goes wrong with your beloved babies. I have always had it for my dogs but in the past have paid up to $28 a month per dog which of course I can no longer afford as I am now only working part time. and soon hope to be retiring. Hope this is helpful to your members as I would hate anybody to loose a dog or cat under these circumstances ............as a note of interest my brother had a similar problem using that product on his cat...I was unaware of that or it would have sent warning bells ringing. Cheers......... MC --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back to: HOME Back to: Pets & Vets |