We put Hartz on our cat because my girlfriend thought that it would be O.K. since she had applied K9 Advantage to her grandmothers cats in the past without incident. We love our cat dearly and this was an honest mistake that is commonly made. I just want to tell my story so it may help the next person. About an hour after applying the treatment my cat started acting weird and then I awoke to her crying in the middle of the night. She was in a lot of pain and I could see her twitching her ears and shaking her head as her nervous system had been poisoned by the permethrin. This condition is known as permethrin toxicity and there is no antidote for it. The best thing to do is to wash your animal with Dawn dishsoap because Hartz is an oil based solution and the Dawn does well to break it down. After washing my cat with the Dawn I saw an almost immediate improvement. The muscle spasms stopped within 36 hours. We are very lucky to still be graced with our cats presence. These over the counter medicines are really not worth the trouble and you should consult your vet before using any of them. Most of these flea spot treatments are manufactured in China and other places in the world with a cheap labor pool. The government is in the process of investigating these products as incidents are on the rise. See article.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124329165300152331.html
I hope our experience can help someone else.
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2 Comments Received
July 1st, 2009 @6:25 pm
Hartz Mountain Corporation has a deplorable safety record over the years. They aren’t the only manufacturer with an unacceptable safety record, BioSpot and Sergeant’s are also deplorable, but since your problem resulted from Hartz’s products you should know that their appalling history goes back to the late ’80’s and ’90’s when their product, Blockade, was pulled from the market because of a terribly high number of pet injuries and deaths. It was later reintroduced and again had problems. Hartz was cited and fined for not accurately and promptly forwarding consumer reports to the EPA as all manufacturers (and registrants) are required to do. In the early 2000’s they were required to make numberous package labeling and directions revisions on both their cat and dog insecticide ingredient products. In 2005 the EPA, probably the most lax oversight agency in the federal government, forced Hartz to terminate their cat and kitten products, issuing a Cancellation Order against Hartz’s products containing pesticide ingredients. The number of cat and kitten injuries and deaths was stunning and even the EPA could no longer ignore it. Please also report this incident to the National Pesticide Information Center, at 1-800-858-7378. They maintain a database of pesticide-related illnesses for the EPA. The EPA uses this database to determine if dangerous pesticide products require specific action in terms of safety requirements, including up to removal from the market. Don’t let Hartz, Sergeant’s, BioSpot or any other manufacturer get away with the devastation they are causing any longer. These manufacturers count on victims’ owners taking no action or simply complaining for a week or two and then going away. Please take the time to report this terrible tragedy. I’m very sorry this has happened to you and your cat. Thank you for telling your story.
September 14th, 2009 @6:09 pm
Thank you so much for your post here. I just came home to visit my parents and found them both crying and holding our 16 year old cat. My mom had accidentally mixed up our flea shampoos and put hartz ultraguard for dogs on him. He went lifeless and starting having spasms right after the shampoo hit him. He’s currently being bathed in dawn dishsoap and is already more responsive and coming back around.
Thank you so much for writing this here because we never would’ve thought to use Dawn to get the product off. I really, really appreciate it.
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