On May 13, 2009 I applied the flea drops to the neck of my one year old cat, Belle. It was not long after that I noticed an odd noise in the kitchen. When I went to check, I found Belle in the midst of a seizure. What I heard was him thumping around in the chair. I called my husband to the kitchen to help. After the seizure Belle was stretched out like he was trying to cough up a hairball, thinking he was choking, my husband grabbed the flash light and checked in his throat. It was right after this that the cat went limp. While my husband was performing CPR on Belle, I noticed he was not breathing. Not sure on how to give a cat mouth-to-mouth, I just put his entire nose and mouth in my mouth and gently blew until I saw his ribs expand as if he were breathing. After what seemed like an eternity, he started severe twitching and had fully dilated pupils. Then another seizure. My husband wrapped Belle in a towel and off to the emergency vet.
As soon as I got to the vets office, they asked about flea drops and I told them that I had used some earlier on Belle. They knew right off which brand, Hartz. After a bath, an all night long IV, valium, and another drug to counter-effect the flea drops my Belle is fine and healthy. According to the vet, 5 out of ever 1,000 cats have this sort of reaction that Belle had and were it up to him, this stuff would be pulled from the market.
Today, a few weeks later, Belle is back to normal and healthy. Were it not for the fact that Belle is a year old healthy cat, I am not sure he would be here today. Toss the Hartz in the garbage.
Ms Lori
Stumble it!
5 Comments Received
June 3rd, 2009 @7:29 am
So I just recently bought two Hartz products for my cat, not realizing the damage it causes. I bought the Tick and Flea removal and the Ear Mite drops. My poor cat I feel as if I’m torturing it! The spot where I applied the Tick and Flea removal has left him bald. Nothing other than that has occurred, but he has never had a allergic reaction or ANY reaction to any other Tick and Flea products. I fear that I might have to bring him to the vet for the Ear Mite Drops though. His whole left ear has been inflamed since yesterday when I applied it. I could barely even touch the outside of it without him flinching. When I looked inside its extremely red and I can tell he is in a lot of pain! Never again will I trust these products!
July 6th, 2009 @1:13 pm
I totally know the horror you went through with Belle~!
I saw it first hand with the little grey cat I raised that was abandoned by its mother near the barn. We initially thought she was a male & called her Napolean but when she turned 7 months old we found out she was a female,lol, having never’looked’ to be sure, so we dont really have another name for her and just call her the little grey cat.Sometimes we jokingly call her Napoleanna~ but still she has never been outdoors,but my sons puppies have been and they brought in the fleas she became infested with.
Her flea collar didnt get rid of the fleas, so with a couple drops that were left from treating the puppies, I put the last 2 drops on her neck only to later see her frothing at the mouth and convulsing and seizing.
Immediately we took her to the animal hospital where they started decontamination and she was placed on IV therapies to counteract the poison of the flea drops.
She is home recovering now but the vet bill was $485 which is equally devasting to me as I am disabled and live on $700 a month which is spent on rent & utilities.I now dont have my rent for my landlord and dont expect any sympathy as he is a farmer and would have shot the cat hat he seen it frothing!
These over the counter remedies while cheaper than what the vet sells are not cheaper when they cause an animal to suffer and either die or cost a small fortune in medical care.
I just got my disability check on the 1st so I had to pay the vet as he would have kept and boarded my cat til I did pay and that was an additional $9 a day which would have been much more to pay next month.So I paid and now I am in the hole for the amount as I only have an average of $25-30 a month left from my disability check and have since been trying to start an online business from home selling my artwork.There are however so many artists out there online that I have not had any sales so now I am trying to make a fundraiser on my website where I will give away some of my art in exchange just for donations, that is like trading art since I lowered the prices to only cover production of my prints,cards and aceos.
I wish I had saved the carton of the flea drops or that I would have asked the vet for the empty tube when she was done with it since the company that made it will only pay the vet bill IF they get the tube back~ [cant blame them for that I supposed as they do need proof and a way to check their Vats]
Still it was Sargents flea drops, single dose that I had used on the puppies so now I wonder had I put a full dose on them instead of just a little on each IF they would have also suffered the same fate as my cat~!
AveHurley
http://tiny.cc/helpcat
July 25th, 2009 @1:50 pm
my 4 yr. old cat “oliver” just died, we think because of the flea drops we put on him 3 days ago, hasn’t been up to his normal mischief lately, I just thought the summer heat was getting to him. found him about an hour ago when i got home from work, he wasn’t at the door greeting me as usual…i’m devastated!
August 26th, 2009 @6:01 pm
Such awful stories about these poor little pets. And so sorry for your loss, Cindy. I know how you must feel. My own story is as follows. We have 4 young cats (about 4 months old) who are siblings which I raised by bottle feeding from the age of 1 week because their mother got a uterine infection and had to be kept away from the babies. So these cats are almost like my kids, and they certainly seem to think I’m their mom. There are 3 boys (Moe, Elmer and Peanut) and 1 girl (Roz). They’re all sweethearts.
Well, I got some Hartz flea drops, making sure they were for cats and not dogs, and treated all 4 cats 10 days ago. Those drops nearly killed Moe. About 2 days after treatment he just wasn’t acting right. He became more and more lethargic over the next 2 days, lost his appetite AND wouldn’t drink, stayed away from his siblings and eventually just laid there for 3 days solid. During that time I did give him water with an eye dropper because I knew he’d surely die without it, but I couldn’t afford to take him to the vet because we’d just had to fork over several hundred dollars after Elmer was injured by a dog.
Fortunately the poor little guy’s nearly back to his old self now, but is still twitchy and has poor balance so he keeps running into things. I’m hoping these symptoms will subside also. In the future, I’ll not be purchasing ANYTHING made by Hartz. In my opinion, it’s the worst type of betrayal to market something as helpful when they know so many pets have had terrible reactions to it. I read the entire label and instructions 3 times before use to make sure there were no warnings to be aware of. Well, they’re not there but they should be!
September 1st, 2009 @8:35 pm
i nearly lost my cat (maxie) to the flea dip a few years ago. i treated her and later found her outside seizing in the yard… she is alright now, and 8 years old. her flea treatment is dawn bath
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