Posted on

Zodiac FleaTrol Breakaway Flea & Tick Collar

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?

Posted on

NOT just Hartz. DO NOT use Bio Guard shampoo made by Farnam!! We used this on our orange tabby and he was drooling & very sick within hours.

Bio Guard is a supposedly gentle shampoo for cats & dogs that will not wash off spot on treatments ( we use frontline plus) We gave our 1 1/2 yr old cat a bath with it and within hours he was so sick I thought he was going to die. He started with drooling then just got VERY weak & VERY unresponsive. He vomited & was not eating (still isn’t) or drinking. He is now trying to drink but not taking in hardly anything at all. I gave him a bath in Dawn after speaking with a vet asistant. He said NEVER use anything but Dawn dish liquid on a cat. I have thrown the bottle of shampoo away & am thankful I hadn’t used it on my 6 1/2 yr old boxer. Not sure if our kitty is gonna get better or not but we are praying that he does. I just wanted to bring this BIO GUARD to everyone’s attention as well.

Posted on

Almost lost my baby Oliver

A few months ago, my sweet little cat Oliver contracted some ear mites, and I could just tell he was miserable, so I went and bought Hartz ear mite treatment and applied it to his ears. Within moments, he started drooling uncontrollably, urinated on himself, wouldn’t move, and hid from us, which, we knew was unusual, because he is normally the sweetest, most needy cat in the world. It was a Saturday, in the middle of the night, and we rushed him to the pet emergency room, but didn’t really have the money to get him treatment. They were kind enough to wash him thoroughly, but by then his back legs weren’t working, and I honestly thought that he wouldn’t survive the night. I felt HORRIBLY guilty, and stayed up with him the whole night. Miraculously, he made it through that night, but he still had no control over his bladder or his back legs, and we kept expecting the worst. It was almost a week before he finally gingerly started walking around on his own again, and weeks after that he was miraculously back to his old self. It was a miracle, and I know, from reading these stories how lucky I truely was. Today, Ollie is a happy and healthy kitty, back to his overly affectionate self.
I tell everyone I can what Hartz did to my sweet baby. I just wish no one else had to go through what we did.

Posted on

Death to early

We had 3 cats and 1 dog at our house and now we just have 1 cat and 1 dog. Our story is very sad and no one else needs to go through it.
Yesterday we noticed a flea on one of our russian blues, we went to buy some flea controll, Hartz was the brand we decided to purchase. We get home and put the flea controll on all of our animals. Later on in the evening we started to noticed that our 2 russian blues were acting strange. There body movements were jerky, the face was twiching, there meow was weak. Shortly after they both started to have seizurs. At this point we decided to put down the 2 cats. We could not watch them suffer anymore. It was a horrible experiance and no one should have to deal with this kind of loss.
If I would have research this product and found this site we would never bought it.
This product should be taken off the store shelves so no one else have to suffer the lose that we endured last night. Hartzs need to change there packaging to say it may cause death if used. Right now all it says is that there might be some sensitivity to the product. To me that says nothing about death or the side effects that it may cause. Only if we would have know maybe our loved ones would still be with us.

R.I.P       Tika and Carneilius. You will always be in our hearts.

Posted on

I’m Curious.

About a month ago I purchased Hartz Ultra Guard flea and tick spray for cats. It was on sale and being that my cat has long hair I figured it’d be perfect for her! I’ve had a problem with her fleas for awhile and they just keep returning. After using it on her she got very upset (of course) then I noticed her licking her mouth strangely. She had very thick saliva drooling out of her mouth! So i cleaned her off and set her to her water bowl to drink. It stopped after a few minutes. I just figured it happened because maybe she had licked herself and the chemicals thickened up her saliva. Well, today I noticed she had a few fleas on her face. I decided to take a gentle approach and get a q-tip with the a little bit of the spray at the end and dab it on the area with the fleas. Immediately after touching her with the q-tip just around her ear she FLIPPED out! She ran all over the house till finally I caught her and settled her down in my arms. Then I noticed she had the thick saliva as well as drooling coming from her mouth! I didn’t put any around her mouth or anywhere her little tongue could reach! And she never stopped to clean her self off. She is fine now and back to normal but I was wondering if anyone has ever dealt with this side effect before! I do not plan on using this product any more. And other Hartz products have literally NEVER worked on any of my animals except this spray. Not only does this flea and tick spray cause her such discomfort but I don’t ever want to see what future problems arise if I continue using it on her. I love her too much to do a quick fix for fleas… When I typed in google with the name and symptoms this is the top site that talks about anything that happens to our animals due to Hartz products. I have to say Thank You to everyone who has shared their stories. If it wasn’t for this site, I may have been ignorant enough to continue using this product!

Posted on

Too many to remember

I don’t have a personal story, but I just wanted to say that I am an RVT and have worked in a clinic for 9 years, I have seen neurological, skin and behavior reactions to these cheap flea products, some have resulted in death and some in permanent damage. There have been too many to count, it’s a tragedy that these products are on the market and so easy to buy. Something must be done. This page is a great start.

Posted on

Sergeant’s Gold Flea & Tick Squeeze-On

This is my first experience using this products on my two dogs.  My babies are dachshund and blue heeler mixes, each weighing around 21 and 24 pounds.  They each got a treatment with the squeeze-on product.  One dog is just fine.  The other one was drooling like crazy!  I thought maybe she had licked some of the product off her fur and it was making her salivate; however, I did not want  to take a chance, so I washed her down really well and scrubbed this crap out of her fur.  From now on, I think I’m going the natural route.