Beware of Hartz Gold Flea and Tick – Owner had emergency room visit

Its on the market because they can sell it to some more unsuspecting petowners & make MONEY.My story goes back a few years, but I found a small shizu dog (sorry can’t remember the spelling). I was unable to find his owner, so kept him. He arrived with a ton of fleas & heartworms. I kept him as an indoor pet & he got along great with my cats. Because he was tiny, the vet suggested a conservative approach – he said treating for heartworms might cause a large die off of worms & clog an artery or something & kill him, so he suggested heartworm preventative shots every few months to prevent getting more & seeing if the worms he had would die off gradually. We’d check his blood before each shot – the hearworms weren’t a lot better, but they weren’t worse either & he seemed ok. (Note: I think the hearworm treatment has improved some since this time) I had this dog for about 3 years. He was really active & walked well on a leash, so we’d walk in our neighborhood (which is bit rural w/a lot of roadside weeds, etc.) My cats were inside only, & the bigger dogs stayed in my fenced yard – everyone was treated w/Advantage or Frontline, which worked ok for them, but the little dog was a flea magnet because he was low to the ground & we walked near weedy areas. I’d used Sargeant’s flea shampoo in the past on my big dogs with no problems, so in total exasperation over the fleas , I decided to try that on the little guy. I was out of Sargeants & bought some, but accidentally picked up the Hartz flea shampoo instead – it was the same color – what a mistake. I shampooed & rinsed him well. It killed every flea, but the next day he started shivering & coughing. My spirited, active, happy little dog disappeared virtually overnight – he was lethargic & kept to leave his bed. We visited the vet two or three times over the next few days, but he died in the night about a week later. Not long after that I read that s-methoprene, a flea killer, should not be given to animals that have heartworms. I got out the shampoo & that is when I realized it was Hartz & that it contained s-methoprene. (The Sargeant’s does not contain that ingredient.) I think it is awful that they can sell that with no warnings. I take as good of care of my pets as I can afford, & would spend my last dime on them. But I know many people can’t or won’t provide heartworm preventatives, & many dogs have hearworms. Some may say, well, they would die of the hearworms sometime anyway, but they don’t need their life cut shorter with a deadly shampoo. I can’t understand how something so potentially lethal is allowed to be marketed in common grocery or drug stores. I truly feel it killed my dog.