[themogles]

I think my 8wk old puppy may have fleas. She is scratching, mostly her
collar area, but I think I found some "flea dirt" on her bedding. What
is safe for use on a puppy this young?

[Willowy]

Advantage and Frontline are safe for 8-week-old puppies, so you can buy some from the vet. Don't use any grocery-store type flea killers, though, they're very toxic. Also, I would comb her with a flea comb first, just to get most of the fleas out. Keep a cup full of rubbing alcohol or very hot water nearby to kill the fleas.

[Durbkat]

Take your pup to your vet to make sure it has fleas and he should sell you the cat version of frontline or advantage depending on the breed. Snoopy only weighed 3 pounds at 9 weeks so my vet said the dog version would be to strong and he sold me the cat version. Even though the box says its for 8 week old puppies he said that they did not change the amount of ingredients, just changed the label.

[Franny Glass]

The ingredients in feline and canine flea preventatives are different. I suppose a feline formula could work for a dog, but where I work we just use a portion of the full canine dose for puppies and toy breeds. For instance, if your dog weighs 5 lbs. and the dose is good up to 15 lbs., it shouldn't need more than half of it.

For puppies and kittens too young or fragile for any kind of flea preventative, we first flea comb them as mentioned above. Then we bathe them in strong tea tree oil shampoo as this kills remaining fleas and they're too young for pyrethrin shampoo. Works like a charm.

[Durbkat]

Actually Snoopy's vet said that the ingredents were the same but in a less amount.

[Franny Glass]

Hm. I'll take a look at Frontline again tomorrow. It's been a while since I used it, as I've been using Revolution for about forever now. I was under the assumption that the tick prevention component of it was different for cats and dogs, but it entirely possible I'm wrong. I never pay attention to those presentations reps. give at work anyway.

[Willowy]

Frontline and Advantage cat and dog formulas are exactly the same. I've also been told that Revolution is the same, but I haven't checked that out for myself yet. I do split the largest dog Frontline between all of my cats, and I've done the same with Advantage, too. This is a huge savings, as the largest dog dose costs only a couple dollars more than the cat dose. Most vets and/or sales reps will not tell you this, because they make more money by selling you multiple cat doses instead of one large dog dose.

Of course, I always have to add my usual disclaimer: DO NOT try this with any other brand!!!! It will kill your cat!!! ONLY Frontline and Advantage (and possibly Revolution, but do check this out before trying it---don't take my word for it) are safe to do this with!