I've been invaded! For the first time in her short 3 year lifespan, my little cat has brought fleas into my home. Call me a bad cat owner or whatever you will but flea collars were doing enough, it wasn't that I hadn't thought of Frontline, it was that it wasn't needed and with other cats that have been in my life, we've never had to use it.
Unfortunately we discovered the infestation while giving Dolly a much-needed Friday-night bath. We're so lucky that we're able to do this, that isn't to say she loves it, but eventually she just gives in and takes it, it's still a two-man job. I think doing it more regularly will help with this but it's pretty time consuming given that it's actually more important (and difficult) to dry her afterwards and overall she doesn't care either way if her tail is pure-white or not.
It was so gross, there were jumping bugs all over her face and because of the 'flea dirt' it looked like her whole head was bleeding - hopefully the bath helped a little with it but I was up first thing and out the door to Pets at Home the following day, initially to pick up some tablets that I read worked immediately in killing adult fleas. As these didn't work on the 'other parts of the flea life cycle' I was going to get some spot-on treatment, as well as spray for our home too.
Discovering that our local Pets at Home had run out of the tablets did send a shiver down my spine, after reading such rave reviews online, I was pretty excited to make Dolly as comfortable as possible and I knew spot-on treatments didn't work as fast. That said, the Deputy Manager of the store was incredibly helpful and talked me through all the preventative measures and what I should do next - I was a little peeved that he implied that the 'infestation' might be my fault, something I view as actually entirely plausible though given that I really like to pet dogs in the street and I cuddled up to some wallabies just a few weeks back. He also insisted on vacuuming as much as possible (as though I don't spend half my week vacuuming anyway, pfft).
It's been a pretty nerve-wracking week of blitzing and hoovering every room in the flat and checking Dolly's fur daily but I think we're out of the woods and I now have in my possession a flea-killing machine. Now that Doll has been treated with Frontline, luckily with no adverse effects, it's been a bit of a nightmare persuading Moon that it's important to still let her go everywhere so she can 'hoover up' fleas and let them die, and it is working, I've seen proof of it. I've also read that as they die, the fleas become more active so if your pet is infested, they're likely to scratch more after they've been treated than they would before.
I think we were lucky that we managed to catch it early, even though every article I've read says that there will still be fleas in the environment, throughout the whole process, even the part where we were less tentative cat parents, we haven't been bitten or had the need to itch. Maybe we're lucky that we just aren't that tasty to fleas when a juicy fluffball is around but naturally this has taught me a lesson in spot-on treatment, particularly as Frontline itself is so much more purse-friendly online than in shops.
I've actually entered this picture into Dahlia's #dahliamonsters competition to win a t-shirt, wouldn't this face look cute printed out and worn?
Cats are cute, and Dolly is especially but sometimes the responsibility of having a pet does creep up on me and apparently escalates into an essay about infestation, flea treatment and Pets at Home - thanks for making it this far ♥.
