I was in a rush to keep fleas off my new cat Bastet, although the problem wasn’t too bad and I’m low on cash. I found a Zodiac flea collar on Ebay for less than ten dollars, and from my Googling, it looked like it would do the trick without any huge problems.
Bastet wound up licking it for several minutes until my roommate noticed and brought me into the room to see that she was drooling. I admit that it was partially my fault in not clipping the extra collar length off right away, but I didn’t realize it was so urgent. We clipped it right away, but for a while after, Bastet was not only drooling, but was very unsteady on her feet and acting… drunk, for lack of a better word. Her behavior was odd and she was still drooling much later. I started to panic, thinking of horror stories like those from Hartz, and looked up a vet hotline. My sleep schedule is the opposite of most of the world’s, though, so my vet wasn’t open and I couldn’t afford the hotline bills that cost more than a vet visit. I took off the collar and washed the area with soapy water and she seems to have calmed down… I’d like some advice and to warn people about this. The warnings on the back of the box didn’t mention any side effects, and only gave poison treatment options for if someone swallowed it or got it in their eye.
I looked up the active ingredient (propoxur) and found this horrifying list of possible side effects:
Salivation.
Nausea/vomiting.
Abdominal cramps.
Bradycardia.
Weakness.
Twitching.
Ataxia.
Seizures.
Skin irritation.
So yeah, I’m still kind of scared. I haven’t induced vomiting or anything, but I did encourage Bastet to drink water, and she ate something on her own without throwing it up.
Does anyone have any advice or similar experiences?