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If you have ever dealt with fleas with your cat (or dog), then you know how infuriating trying to get rid of them is. Not only are they annoying, but they can be dangerous for your furry friend. Cats can become itchy from the bites, causing them to scratch and potentially result in open wounds or infections. Cats can suffer from allergic reactions from flea bites, and if the infestation lasts long enough, cats can develop anemia from the fleas feeding on their blood.
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Our Story
We adopted our second cat, Boba, from a rescue about a year ago. We traveled two hours to meet her at an adoption event, where we met her and the woman who was fostering her. We, of course, fell in love and 30 minutes later, we were on our way home with her. What we didn’t know, and what the rescue and the foster failed to inform us, was that the poor cat was absolutely INFESTED with fleas. Boba is very fluffy (part Ragdoll) and this hid the fleas very well. We didn’t notice for a few hours after bringing her home, when we saw one crawling on her face. Luckily, she was isolated in our guest room/my office, which I hadn’t set up yet, so there was very little in the room and she had not been introduced to our pre-existing cat, Bella. Come to find out, the home she was fostered in since she was born had 11 other cats and 4 dogs living there! (Some residents, most were fosters- the foster got stuck with 3 different litters at the same time). The rescue put flea medication on her literally right before we took her home, and said that she enjoyed being brushed. But nothing about having fleas. We were furious to say the least!
But we got to work immediately. We were determined to free our house of fleas as quickly as we could and minimize the risk of fleas being transferred to Bella. We knew that once fleas took over, there would be no going back.
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The Process
Given the sheer amount of fleas we were seeing on her once we started searching through her fur, we decided to go the professional route. Between my boyfriend and I, we called upwards of 50 pet groomers in our area to get her groomed with a flea treatment. Every single one, and I do mean every single one, said that they would only wash her with a flea shampoo, they wouldn’t brush her out with a flea comb afterwards, which we thought kind of defeated the purpose. We ended up purchasing flea shampoo and a flea brush and doing it ourselves. We dove headfirst into researching fleas and the best way to get rid of them (you can read more about that here). My sister (who lives about a 6 hour drive away) was a dog groomer and, although she didn’t groom cats, her boss specialized in cats, so she was able to offer some advice and recommendations on flea shampoo. We gave Boba a flea bath and spent hours combing through her fur to remove the fleas.
We also took her to the vet, which we were going to do regardless for a wellness check up. The vet gave her a medication that was supposed to kill all live fleas on her within 30 minutes. And LET ME TELL YOU…. the fleas were just RAINING off of her. She then got another flea bath to clean everything off of her again.
The medication did its job in killing all of the live fleas, so we just had the flea eggs and larvae to worry about. Once Boba got the medication and the second flea bath, she was then moved to the bathroom for quarantine. Every time we interacted with her, we would change our clothes or take a shower, and wash all clothing in a sanitation cycle. Once we discovered fleas on Boba, Bella was also quarantined in a different part of the house. We made sure we changed clothes (at minimum) before going to interact with Bella if we had just interacted with Boba.
Once both cats were quarantined, we went to work in the room that Boba was originally staying in. I am so glad I had not gotten around to organizing and setting up that room yet, as that helped a lot with the cleaning process. This is because every single item in the room was sorted through and cleaned. Items were divided into three piles: items that could be cleaned (blankets, clothes, hard surfaced items like books, etc), items that could not be cleaned and were in quarantined (balls of yarn, etc), and trash (anything that could not be cleaned that were not worth saving, like cardboard cat scratching boxes). Items that could be cleaned were washed in a sanitizing setting and were not put back in the room. Hard surface items like bookcases, books, and my desk were sprayed and wiped down using Wondercide spray. My sister also recommended this product to me, as it kills the flea eggs specifically. I also sprayed down floors and baseboards with this stuff too! Once that room was thoroughly cleaned, Boba was moved back into the room (after another flea bath and brushing) and the process was done all over again in the bathroom.
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Reflections and Best Practices
Believe it or not…. we never saw another flea again! (fingers crossed, its been a year and a half now at the time of writing this). and Bella never got fleas! All of my research said it would take months to even years before fully getting rid of the fleas, and yet we did it in two weeks. This can 100% be attributed to doing our research, learning about the flea lifestyle, and tackling each stage rather than just the live fleas. And I’m glad we did. Sure fleas are a pain to deal with, but once we were flea-free, it was evident just how much Boba’s quality of life took a hit. Her fur and eyes became brighter, she became even fluffier (if that’s even possible!), and she had significantly more energy. She was only a year old when we adopted her, and she probably spent the majority of that year with fleas. But the kitten side of her didn’t start to come out until the fleas were gone. She now just gets a dose of monthly flea medication (we use Revolution Plus– we also did a TON of research on flea medications, I’ll write another post about that!) and regular brushing and both cats are good to go!
If you are also dealing with fleas, just know that it gets better and this does not have to last forever! Just do your research and find what is going to work best for you! I have linked all of the products that we used and had good results with, feel free to check them out!