How can I get rid of fleas on our dogs - naturally?? Hi

Hi guys I'm going insane but not as insane as my dogs. Long story short my dogs have never had fleas then my brothers dog came to stay and now they have fleas and it's driving them mad. I have washed them and sprayed them with lemon and rosemary everyone told me this would work but it hasn't. So I added citronella and it seems a bit better but I need to fry these buggers and quickly.

Yes I know I can get some chemical from the vet or pet shop for them but I'm trying to avoid that as it will cost me about $50 per dog x 3 ouch plus it's a chemical. If I have to do it I will but would like to try other ways first.

Any ideas??

You can get handmade dog soaps, usually containing neem oil. Not sure if it gets rid of fleas or prevents them?? Might be worth looking into?

I don't know any way that doesn't use chemicals but when I was looking after my parents sheep dogs I found that taking them swimming twice a day helped to keep the numbers down.

we use flea powder - its basically sulphur, and is HEAPS cheaper than the other stuff you can get.

Thing is, you can get rid of the fleas off the dogs, but they might be in the dirt, they can live for ages in the ground without anything and then as soon as they smell that sweet sweet blood they come to the surface. How to go about that...I dont know, but I guess if your dogs keep getting re-infested that might be why.

I don't know of any way to get rid of them without chemicals either. I do know that people think teatree is good but it is not good for dogs. I agree with Onyx that washing washing them (more soakng them without soap then washing) is going to help a little. There is a tablet available now that might be the least chemical option since it does not go on the coat.
If flees are bad you would have to treat the area your dogs live too and that would involve chemicals.
Any reason you don't want to use a product?

Thanks all
Teirae do you find the flea powder effective??

Mainly don't want to use it because of the cost

In all honesty you might find trying so many different things will cost more then getting a treatment. What size is your dog?

A pack of three flea spot on treatments isn't cheap, but at least it gives you a month's protection. And it will get rid of them. It's slightly more cost effective to buy the bigger pack sizes. ($50 per dog is well above what I think it costs - more like around that for the three pack).

Unfortunately, that's the reality cost-wise of pet ownership!

yea I do, you get some and really rub it into them, DH drowns our puppy in it =P For the first 6 months or so we did it every month, because we noticed he was scratching etc. but in the last 2 months or so, we havent gotten around to it, and havent noticed him scratching or anything at all.

Only chemicals will work unfortunately. I use Revolution, but Frontline plus is cheaper and is for fleas only. I get mine from eBay and it's heaps cheaper. A 6 month packet for a 10-20 kg dog is usually about $120 in the vets, but it's around $80 from eBay.

Also it says one application every month, but sometimes I've done it every 6-8 weeks and my dog hasn't even started to scratch. So you can stretch it out longer.

i know your trying to avoid the chemical route cause of expense look into comfortis which is a monthly chewable tablet becuase since we started using on our dog we have no fleas and I mean nothing nada zilch

My FIL just got flea treatments for me for both dogs & the cat - $120 for 3mths for all 3.. Expensive yeah but I don't think we have much else to choose from.
We have 1 smaller dog and 1 bigger though so would be less for smaller dogs.


Sent from my iPhone, more than likely while I should be doing something else!

I have tried everything for our dog who keeps getting re-infested. We tried bathing, powders, citronella, everything. Even frontline was no good so we have gone for comfortis which although expensive has worked. I know it is expensive but unfortunately that is one of the costs of pet ownership. Good luck, I hope you get the little buggers off your dogs for good :D

Fleaban tablets which knock out the fleas within 30 minutes are good - but that's all they do for the short time they are in the dogs system - so it's not a long term thing at all.


Traveller I've not heard of the comfortis you mention - I've been having the same issues with my dog, using a variety of the other brands, she always still seems to get some fleas and she has a bit of an allergy to them and gets very itchy and red! I will have to google this to try!


ETA I just googled it and it's actually pretty cost effective in comparison with frontline or some of the others around $60 for 6 months, yet the others are about that for only 3 months supply. I am going to give it a go!

Thanks so much for the replies will look into that comfortis

Just ordered some Comfortis for my poor fleabags! Hope it works...!

The chemical spot-on treatments from your vet are far superior than probably anything else you'll be able to find. Not only do they kill all adult fleas on the dogs as well as all the other life cycles of the fleas, but it also has an environmental effect as well. Anything your dog rubs against or sleeps on will also get some of the treatment and so fleas and eggs on their bedding and other areas can actually be killed from a single treatment.

You can sometimes get the packets cheaper from online places like ebay, but many people find them ineffective as the products have been stored incorrectly (for example in a big hot warehouse) and the active ingredients have become ineffective. They need to be stored at the right temperature to stay most active.

One thing you can ask your vet to help you with is sharing a packet for larger dogs between your three dogs (is it's possible with the size of your dogs). When I still worked at the clinic we understood that for some people it's financially hard to buy a pack for each dog, so we would help them out. This technique is not covered by the manufacturers warranty (did you know they have a warranty? If frontline/revolution etc doesn't work on your pet, then you can take it up with the company) but we would let the client know and choose for themselves. We used to give the client a syringe and write down for them how much of the liquid needed to go on each dog. They could then buy a pack for a bigger dog and squeeze the liquid into a small container (disposable drink bottle lids are handy) and then draw up the correct amount to put on each dog. It works out much cheaper that way. Depending on the size of the dogs you may be able to make a 3 month pack last 3 month for all three dogs, rather than just one month.