Month: June 2005

My 1 1/2 year old cat, Simon has never had a health issue until I gave him some Hartz flea medicine. Almost immediately he started twitching and moving his legs in violent shakes. I had no idea what was wrong until I read the back of the package and it said to bring my cat to the vet immediately if it was showing any signs. $250.00 later at an emergency vet, I was told he had a reaction to the general pesticide that Hartz uses in its flea meds. The vet explained further that they have contacted Hartz a number of times informing them of the problems they were seeing with the medicine. Hartz threatened them with legal action if they continued to put the word out on the dangers of there products.
Simon is doing great, but I still wonder what kind of long term damage has resulted. I sent an email to Hartz telling them about my experience and they never responded. It amazes me that a company that says it is dedicated to the health and happiness to animals only cares about the bottom line.. money.. and at whatever cost.

I am so happy to see other people putting the word out. Everytime I see Hartz flea products at the store, I cringe to know what could be happening to the unsuspecting cat lovers that believe they are buying a safe product. I applaud hartzvictims.org for their work.

About a month after moving to Germany with the military, I used this on my ten year old German Shepherd. Within days he had a massive seizure. Being in a foreign country and not knowing it I had to wait three hours before taking him to the vet. We did a full blood work-up. Thankfully everything came back normal. I have NEVER used it again and the dog has not had any other seizures. I think it should be removed from shelves!

I lost my beautiful orange tabby Alvin to this product. I held his paw as the vet had to put him to sleep. It was hard and I dont want anyone else to go through this. I didnt make the connection until I almost lost another kitty. It is a dangerous product. Dont let another baby die.

He really was special. I have never had a cat like him before. It broke my heart losing him. I feel the guilt that I did this to him all the time. I lost him 9/24/04.

I let everyone I run into know about this product and what it did to my big boy. Dont let him die in vain, let his death mean something.

When I treated all five of my cats with Hartz 3 in 1 flea and tick drops and all became ill I contacted hartz and petco where I bought the product. I learned the EPA made an agreement to allow Hartz to continue selling the product until Oct 2006, but I could not understand why Petco would allow it to remain on thier shelves. They are as much to blame as Hartz. I may lose one of my cats because of this product. The other four may have permanent nerve damage.
Please write letters to Petco Chairman of the Board – this is a publicly traded company.

I have a small 18 Lb Maltese and since he is white I can see anything black on him pretty easy. so I found some Fleas . I then bathed him and felt I got rid of most of them. so to make sure since here in washington we had a real mild winter and we were told that this year the Fleas will be plentiful. so I bought some Hartz flea drops and put them as instructed on my Maltese. I have to tell you I never seen this Animal so agitated and restless since I applied these drops this mroning so then after the fact I went to the computer only to find out all this bad stuff.. so I imidiatley went and washed it off with soap and rinsed it and then did it again and maybe just maybe I got rid of most of it since he is starting to seetle down a bit.
Thank you for posting all these exspereiences.

Last night I applied Hartz Advanced Care flea drops to my two-year old female cat, Phoebe Lou. I followed the instructions and thought I was doing a good thing for my healthy, playful pet. This morning, right away, I noticed she was not her usual rambunctious self. She seemed withdrawn and was startled easily by the slightest movement or noise. She was extremely disoriented and clumsy, falling off of everything she tried to jump up on. She could not stand and kept falling over sideways. When I picked her up, she was tense and trembling. The first thing I did was put her in the kitchen sink and bathe her with dish soap. Then I called my emergency vet and was told to bring her in as quickly as possible. They began treatment immediately. She is at the vet hospital now, on valium and subcutaneous I.V. Hopefully, she will survive. I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t. I love her like people love their kids. I feel horrible that in trying to do the best thing for her, I nearly killed her. Hartz should be made to pay. Apparantly, their profits are all they care about. I want to help put Hartz out of business.
Loona, Williamsburg, Virginia.

We had an older cat, but a thriving cat until we used Hartz spot flea/tick control.
Her fur fell out at the neck area and her health deteriated to the point of death last week. WE have never used Hartz products before and we will never use them in the future and I will be an advocate for other animals advise people not to use them.

I have a 11 week old chihuahua puppy. I have had a cheap flea collar on her and it did not seem to be working, fleas are awful this year in our area. I purchased a Hartz Ultimate flea collar that promises to kill fleas, adult fleas and their eggs on Thursday June 9th. Today Friday June 10th at around 6pm, my little Tia started vomiting white froth and being very lethargic. She will not eat or drink. She lays in her bed and looks at you. She is usually very playful and won’t even get up now. I took the collar off of her immediatley thinking maybe it is too strong for her. However, after reading the posts while doing research I think the Hartz products suck. Years ago, I had a lovely male cat, Demon with the most silky black hair and a flea problem. I purchased Flea spray for long haired cats from Hartz at Wal-Mart. Soon after applying it to him, he was running around and had lost control of his bowels and was drooling. I called the emergency vet who told us to put as much shampoo on him as we could and wash him thouougly. My poor Demon could not even stand up. The bath worked and the vet told us to never use anything otc on him again. He said they were not safe.
I am taking Tia to the vet in the morning and hope we got this collar off her in time. She is a small puppy and we took pains to make sure any treatments were safe for her. Some give a weight limit, this product gave an age limit and was one of the few we thought might be safe. She had been wearing the other brand collar for 3 weeks with no ill effects.

My poor kitty! I used the Hartz 3 in 1 flea drops, I’ve been more fortunate than a lot of people but my Ferber hated this stuff, he scratched at the back of his neck so badly that he gave himself a horrible looking gash and has a bald patch now from the scratching. When I read the article on USA Today about Hartz phasing out this product (but not until 2006) I started to cry, I could have killed my poor Ferby! I really think this product should be recalled so no one else will buy it.

Kassy Ellefson