I want to thank everyone for sharing their stories. When I was growing up Hartz was the flea medication recommended by my veterinarian for our oodles of cats. Recently we found a tick on our dog, Ted, and ordered him some Frontline Plus from 1-800-Pet-Meds, but as a side thought when we were at the local grocery store, we picked up some Hartz UltraGuard for our cat, Meatball. Meatball hadn’t had any issues other than dry skin, but we thought if Ted was picking up things in his daily romps outside, there was a chancy Meaty could get something by just hanging out near Ted’s favorite sleeping spots.
We put the Hartz on Meatball and that night he vomited all of his food back up and turned our bathroom into a horror story of half chewed food. His litter box could have been considered a WMD due to the horrific smells from his bowel movements. He was lethargic; he didn’t want to eat (very serious for him- he’s a fat little guy, hence “Meatball”). I searched Google for pet reactions to flea treatments and came across this site. Many of you reported the same issues.
Needless to say, he immediately got a bath with Dawn dish soap (it works for oil covered ducks, right?) and he is on his way back to normal. Half a day later, his stomach seems to have calmed down , he has taken an active interest in drinking water (and chowing small meals) and is overall acting better. We are still keeping an eye on him, but he’s definitely headed in the right direction.
1 Comment Received
November 9th, 2011 @7:50 am
My 4 yr old calico, Chloe, has dry/sensitive skin and reacted very badly to the flea drops. We treated our 4 cats and she was the only one (so far), to react. I woke up this morning (treated her 8pm last evening), to a table full of fur. She has a 3″ x 1″ bare patch on the back of her neck/back area from the application site. She doesn’t seem to be sick…so far. I bathed the area this morning and put Cortizone cream on it for the skin irritation (that helps with her hot spots). I had my son bathe her again with cool water on the spot and I am on pins and needles until I get home to see her. She’s my baby…I love her to pieces. I had not researched HARTZ products prior to use as it was recommended by a good friend and the HARTZ name has been out there for years, supposed to be a company we can trust. I read all the directions before use, so I felt, as a good pet owner, that I was doing a good thing. Guess we all need to research well ahead of time. A hard lesson learned. I am thankful, so far, that it’s only lost hair and skin irritation. I feel like such a bad Mommy
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