I didn’t grow up with pets. My mom wasn’t a fan of having to take care of any four legged creatures, and the most we ever had in regards to non humans in the house were a goldfish or two.
I remember going out to the garden once when I was around 3 or 4 years old and gathering a dozen or so potato bugs in a little Tupperware container. I had high hopes that they could be my pets. Mom wasn’t too keen on that either, so out they went back into the garden. Better for them in hindsight, I’m sure.
My senior year in college I managed to keep a hamster in my dorm room that my boyfriend at the time had bought me for Christmas. It was highly illegal to have pets of any kind in the dorms, but there were a few other girls on my floor with guinea pigs and hamsters, so I wasn’t alone in my fur baby contraband….and I loved that little thing!
Once I graduated and moved into my own apartment, one of the first things I did was adopt two kittens. They were my babies and a part of my family for 16 and 17 years respectively.
Losing them was heartbreaking to both the kids and I. After they passed away, I vowed to never again own another pet. It was too hard to think about someday having to say goodbye to another one…..but then Joey came along and changed everything.
A few months after my last kitty had to be put down, a friend of mine who works with an animal rescue in LA asked if I would foster a 4 month old mini poodle pup until they could find it a forever home. I saw a picture of him and couldn’t say no. It would only be for two weeks. No big deal, right?
Yeah. Right.
Instant foster failure. The first hour Joey spent at my house I knew he would never leave…..and here he is almost 6 years later. Funny little guy who thinks he’s a person….and he kind of is!
Like with my human kids, I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out things that will help Joey stay healthy as naturally as possible. So now I’ll get to what I really intended this post to be about….those other little creatures that like to attach themselves to our four legged companions. Fleas!!
Shortly after Joey came to live with us he discovered a part of the backyard that unfortunately became his favorite place to dig and hide his rawhide bones. I say unfortunately because that portion of the backyard was infested with fleas.
For some reason it had been left untreated for years by the former tenants and even when fumigated, the fleas would still resurface a few months later. Needless to say, Joey was getting eaten alive. I tried everything…flea collars, flea dips, topical flea medication like Advantage and every other incarnation of the stuff, as well as oral medication…..NOTHING worked.
I hated going the chemical route because my kids were still young and I didn’t want them around the shedding neurotoxins from the flea meds. The oral medication made my pup have extreme gastro-intestinal distress. I tried all that stuff out of desperation. The vets couldn’t give me any real solutions so….I did what I do best. Teach myself!
Off to the internet I went and ended up finding a combination of things that not only were crazy affordable, but worked like a charm. As a result, Joey has remained flea free to this day!
The first thing I did was to start giving him a brewer’s yeast and garlic supplement specially formulated for dogs and completely safe. He thought it was a treat, and happily ate them. Next, I bought him an amber flea collar….as in the fossilized resin.
At first I was skeptical it would do anything for him, but the more I read about these types of collars the more convinced I became that I should at least give it a try. According to the information I gathered on these collars, the amber causes a slight static charge when rubbing against your pets’ fur which repels fleas and ticks from hitching a ride on them.
This worked so well, that I recommended it to my neighbor up the street who owns two pitties. She takes them camping all the time and was having trouble keeping her dogs pest free. Since using the amber collars, neither of her boys has had a flea or tick on them. Battle won! No chemicals needed.
Lastly, I made a spray mixing lemongrass, cedar, and rosemary essential oils with water to spray Joey down if I knew he would be somewhere particularly flea-centric like the dog park (makes him smell good too!)…..and that’s it!
I have since stopped using brewers yeast, and mainly rely on the amber flea collar….still haven’t had any more issues with fleas. Granted, I moved out of the old house with the pesty backyard, but there are stray cats that come into my garden, and he goes on walks in my heavily dog populated neighborhood….still no critters highjacking on him. Not one.
The best part of it all is that Joey is no longer being exposed to chemicals, and neither are my kids and I. Just another little reminder that it’s always worth checking into what nature can do to help in almost any situation before completely turning over to toxic alternatives. That being said, what works for one dog, may not work for all others….but it may work for yours!
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