Healing from fleas

[MsCocoMom16]

Hello feline family. I believe my Coco has/had fleas because of her losing hair & constantly licking herself. So I googled home treatments to tid the fleas & to my surprise, they suggest Dawn soap! So for the very first time I gave her a bath ( she's 3 years old now ). She didn't do well at first with just being in the bathtub, even though I made it slip proof she didn't like it. So I ended up with water all over the floor...well long story short I bathed her & put a collar on her. She has scratched a little but definitely not like before. Should the bath & collar be enough for her to get rid of the fleas?

[Mollycat]

No, definitely not. Only a small number of fleas and the problem are on your cat - assuming fleas are her problem at all. The rest are in your carpet and soft furnishings. To check for fleas, sit the cat on a white piece of paper and comb through some of its coat. You should get some gritty little black dirt particles on the paper. Carefully apply a drop of water each to a random half a dozen of these. Flea poo is made of blood and when put in water and stirred around a little it will give off some red stain.

The kind of infestation that will have a healthy non-allergic cat losing its hair is a very serious infestation and you may need several treatments of cat and house with potent chemicals. Also, be careful what you put on a cat's fur as a "home remedy" because some surprising things can be highly toxic when the cat then washes itself. That's why it's important to get the right flea killing product, because if used correctly they will be strong enough to kill fleas without harming your cat. Never use dog flea treatments on cats, they have different chemicals and can be fatal.

[fjm]

Excellent advice from Mollycat. By the time your cat is that badly affected your house is very probably infested with fleas at all stages of development - eggs, larvae, pupae and adults. You will need to treat the cat and the house - especially any soft furnishings and floor cracks, etc. The best treatments for the cat will come from your vet and will break the breeding cycle - most over the counter ones are either of limited usefulness or positively dangerous - and you will need to take care using chemicals on your house to choose those that are reasonably safe for cats. In the meantime vacuum thoroughly and frequently (the flea collar could go into the vacuum bag to kill any that hatch out in there). Comb Coco regularly to see if there are any fleas or flea dirt - dropping the fleas into water with a dash of dish detergent will kill them. To check for fleas in a room try a shallow bowl of water with a lit votive candle/night light candle in it. Fleas are attracted to the warmth, and will drown in the water. Reckon on several dozen out there waiting to breed for every one you catch!

And as has been said be very, very careful with home remedies suggested on the internet, especially those involving essential oils. They can be extremely toxic to cats - at least one forum member has lost a cat as a result of using them.