I recently had a very upsetting experience using Hartz Advanced Care product. Tuesday evening, June 10, I noticed my five year old German Sheppard had fleas, so I got my next dose of Hartz Flea and Tick drops to put on her. After appling the dose, there was a very tiny bit left, approx. two drops. I also knew if Gypsy had fleas, then my kitten, Ricochette, 15 weeks old would have them also. I checked the label on the package, as I do at work, I work landscaping and do spray lawns-in the process of getting certified through New York State. There was no warnings other than if a bad reaction or itching or redness accures, wash your pet. Do not use on puppy’s under 12 weeks of age. It did say it was toxic to fish, but I do not know of any fish that gets fleas. So, I put the last drops on Ricochette. Everything seemed fine, both animals played and did everything normal for the rest of the evening.
At 3 am Ricochette woke me up, shaking, barely able to walk, meow or jump. I quickly washed him off with mild soap, and put him with me for the rest of the night. At 6 am, I took both Ricochette and Gypsy to my mother’s so she could keep an eye on him while I was at work, and again gave him another bath with mild soap. At 8 am I called my vet, they told me to bring Ricochette over right away, very serious. I called my mother and asked her to run him over and I would stop at the vets, enroute to my next job site. My vet put Ricochette on a I.V., and said the only thing he could do was wait and see, the last cat that had this happen to him died. The I.V. was used to flush out his system, that is the only thing to do for this product. He was given my boss’s cell number incase he went down hill, I could be with him, if he had to be put down.
All day, everytime my boss paged me, my heart jumped. Everytime the phone rang at my mother’s, she didn’t want to answer it because she thought it was the vet telling her that something had gone wrong. Finally at 7 pm, my vet called me at home and told me that Ricochette was doing much better, and he was going to keep and eye over him through the night and I could pick him up in the morning.
The next day, I called and Ricochette had the runs really bad, so he was going to do more tests, and to call at noon. Finally at 230 pm I was able to pick him up and after $ 160.00, two days from hell, he is fine and all back to normal. My vet wanted to see the package, and could not believe there was no warning on there not to use on cats or kittens, very toxic to them. I told him I wanted the company to pay for the vet bill, and also was thinking about sueing them for product liability. I am in the process of doing that, and contacting the media in my area to run the story, which is how I found out about your site.
Any and all information I can gather to get this product off the shelves, is one more cat whose life will not be at risk when applying a flea control product. I will never, ever again buy any of their products, and I am telling everyone I know not to use it either.
Being single, my pets are my kids, they are very dear to me, if Ricochette would have died I would have been devastated. If anyone would like to contact me, my e-mail address is justjeff@opcsfcu.net . Thank you for your time and this web site. Any information that I find to be helpful, I will pass it on right away.
Jeff Tornow
Boston, New York 14025
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