What do I do about fleas?

Question
Hi,

My pup is 13 weeks old and has fleas and they are driving him crazy.  I was using Hartz on him then I read some very negative things about Hartz and Sargents.  I then heard if you use Dawn dish washing soap on him it will really help.  I have been using the Dawn and then they told me to sprinkle Borax on the carpets and I have been doing that and it has been giving him some relief.

What should I do about the fleas?  The poor little guy gets driven wild by them.

Thank you in advance for your response.

Also I am feeding him Puppy Chow.  What kind of food should I feed him when he is an adult?  I can't afford really expensive food so what is the best kind that I can get at Walmart?

Answer
Julie;
First, let me relate to you an experience I had fron using Hartz flea shampoo. This happened to me back in the early 90s.
I shampooed all 4 of my dogs with the flea shampoo that comes in the silver metalic looking bottle. I forget just what they call it. Hartz Mountain something.
Anyway, there is no warnings about using gloves( or there wasn't at that time) on the label anywhere.
The directions said to lather up and leave the lather 5 minutes before rinsing.
It DID kill the fleas on the dogs, but the fact is, just soapy water will do that. There is no residual killing, which is good, because a dpog licking themselves would kill your dog, eventually.
Anyway, in the middle of the night I woke with my hands hurting terrribly.
My hands looked like I had on baseball mitts.
They were so swollen, the skin started to crack.
I went to the doctor who gave me an anti-toxin shot.
It took a wek for my hands to go down to normal size, and the PAIN!
It was caused by absorbing the chemical in the shampoo. I had absorbed the poison through my hands, and apparently, had my hands not swollen so much and sent me to the doctor, it may have had an even more terrible effect. I could have died.
As it was, for the next 5 years, everytime I put mu hands in almost anything, dishwashing liquid even, my hands puffed up and split.
They would swell so much, I could barly bend them. I couldn't hold anything in them because of the pain, and couldn't make anything close to a fist.
It started to get a little better, but I am still having trouble with it more than 15 years later.
Now I will tell you some natural things that will not hurt you or your dog.
Pannyroyal oil:
Pennyroyal smothers fleas, and ticks and their larvae.
It has the same effect on them that putting a plastic bag over your head would have on you.
They die right away.
DO NOT use this if you have cats too, as pennyroyal is extremely toxic to cats.
If it is growing outside, cats will not come near it, but indoors, breathing it would be fatal to cats.
I get pennyroyal oil at health food stores.
You want the pure oil, sold in the oils section. There is one form of it in a dropper bottle to take internally. This is not what you want. You want the oure oil. It is very expensive, and a very small bottle, about ,05 oz, can run from 6 to 12 dollars, but you use a very little bit.
I order it online, because I can get an 8 oz bottle for about 21 dollars, but on that site you have to order a minimum of 50.oo dollars.
I also order orange oil, lavender oil etc, so it pays me to order it from them. I always have more than a 50 dollar balance. I only have to buy that about once a year.
You can put a drop or two on your palm, rub them together, and then rub all over your dog.
Pur epsom salts in your blender or food processor and whirr it till it is as fine as you can get it, then put about 1 cup epsom, drop in a few drops of pennyroyal oil, and mix thoroughly. Put it in a glass contasiner ( plastic containers will absorb the oil and you will never get it out to use that container again for anything else.
Storing it in plastic bags, the scent will evaporate over a few days.
Put it in a glass container and close it. Let it set overnight, shaking it severqal times.
This makes a great carpet dust. You can sprinkle some of it all over your carpets, and on upholsteres furniture the dog has been on, anywhere fleas could have laid eggs.
When the eggs hatch, the larvae will be smothered right away. You can also sprinkle it where you have hardwood floors, and sweep it into the small cracks. Leave this for a few days before you vacuum, then reapply after you vacuum..
Treat the yard by  adding pennyroyal oil to epsom salts that has not been whirred smaller.
I get Epsom Salts at Walmart for about $3.00 for a container that looks like about a half gallon.
My back yard is 65'X 80'. I put enough pennyroyal oil to make it smell really strong, mixing it thoroughly, then closing it up tightly to let it set overnight so all the salts will absorb some of the oil.
I then broadcast it by hand all over the yard. I use about 5 of the Epsom Salt packages for the whole back yard.
Your dog will probably not appreciate your putting that scent on him. Pennyroyal is a member of the mint family, but it smells stronger than most mints.
Mine hide from me when they smell me open the bottle, but I hase them down and rub some of it on them, when they do get fleas.
I live in North Texas, and fleas are a big problem here. Our semi-tropic climate is perfect for them.
 Cedar:
Cedar repels a ton of other inscts too, including termites.
In early spring, I sprinkle cedar bark mulch all over my yard. I put a trail of it about 3 or 4 inches wide and an inch or two high, all around the foundation of the house and outbuildings. I never have termites on our place.
You just have to put a thin sprinkling of it all over. You can smell that lovely cedar aroma rising up. It is a very refreshing smell. I do that every 3 or 4 months through till fall. I put 2 or 3 applications per year.
You can also buy cedar oil.
I got an 8 oz bottle of cedar oil the last time I ordered, and got it last week. I am going to experiment on what to mix it with to disperse it through water to spray the yard with. That will be easier than handling the large bags of cedar bark mulch I get at the nursery.
Amway puts out a product called LOC. It is an all purpose claner, but it makes water something like 300 times wetter. It disperses oil through the water, so if you use a teaspoon to a tub of water, or a TBLSP if you fill your bathtub full, and it will disperse bath oil through the water, to get it all over your skin without the oily feel. It also keeps you from getting a bathtub ring.
I hav used it for years in my bath. You just don't get a bathtub ring.
My thinking is maybe I can put water with LOC in it, in my garden sprayer, and add LOC, about 1 TBSP to 2 gallons of water. It should disperse the oil evenly through the water. If that works, I will spray with that all over my yard. But I will still keep it in the house to put a drop or two on my hand, and rub all over the dogs.They smell minty, and they don't like it, but they smell purty. LOL
I sneaked up on my little Lhasa one day, and grabbed him, Opened the bottle of oil, and rubbed some on him. He usually objects to the pennyroyal oil, and sqwirms to get lose, and fusses while I am rubbing him.
Well, he struggled harder, fusses more, and when I let him go, he ran off looking back at me, giving me the dirtiest looks you ever saw. He wouls top every few feet, looking back at me and barking and fussing. He was really chewing me out good. I couldn't understand why he was making so much fuss, even more than ever before, then I got a whiff of my hands. I had grabbed the lavender oil instead of pennyroyal, and mom had put PERFUME on him. LOl

Beneficial nemetodes.
Buy some beneficial nemetodes to put in your yard. They eat the flea eggs or larvae.

My son and daughter-in-law moved into a new apartment, and he called me and asked me what to do. As soon as they got their stuff moved in, they noticed the apt was full of fleas. I made them some carpet dust while they were on their way over, to get it. They went back and trew it all over the carpet, in the closets, everywhere.
The next morning the fleas in the apartment problem was no more.
I can't imagine the apartment manager not thinking of fleas when the people moved. They had a dog.
Normal poisons they spray with for other bugs ( which don't work as well as the organic things I use) doesn't phase fleas, apparently.
With the pennyroyal on your dog's coat, licking himself will not cause death, like the flea shampooes and other flea treatments will. My Veterinarian has a fit if someone brings in an animal with a flea collar on them.
He snatches it off and tells them to not ever put one of those things on an animal. He says they absorb that poison through their skin, and that he has seen a lot of animal deaths attributed to those collars.
I do, when we have a very bad year for fleas, use Frontline on my dogs.
I tried Advantage, and though I love their commercials with that cute Golden Retriever puppy, it isn't worth a darn for keeping fleas and ticks off.
The Frontline does put a minute amount of poison into their system, while the pennyroyal is not toxic at all.
You don't want to get the oil on their skin though. That is very highly concentrated and could irritate the skin.
I just rub all over their hair. It works fast too.
I would say 2 to 3 drops on your palms. I just hold my palm on the bottle top, and turn it over then back up. There is about 2 or 3 drops of oil on my palm.
If I can help further, write me anytime.
Charlotte