Hello- I am new to the forum and have a quick question. If anyone could provide any insight, I would appreciate it.
We had a 3 year old Pomapoo join our family about a month and a half ago, and upon bringing him home discovered that he had a major flea problem. It was so bad that if you parted the hair practically anywhere on him, you were guaranteed to see at least three or four fleas hanging out there. We took him to PetSmart to get groomed immediately, and he was flea-free after his flea bath and haircut, but the woman said it was necessary to get some sort of treatment to keep him from being reinfested, because he likely had eggs on him that would hatch. We purchased SentryPro XFC at the recommendation of the PetSmart employee, and it nearly killed him. It burned his back severely, caused him to vomit, gag, shake... it didn't take much time until we found this website (
Problems with SentryPro XFC flea and tick medication | Gibberish Is My Native Language) which says it's been linked to seizures, kidney failure, death... We washed it off of him that night with water, only to find out the next day that all that probably did was soothe his burn, since the product is oil-based and water alone won't wash it off- so by the time we washed him with the recommended dish soap, it had been absorbed into his system and was circulating through his blood stream. It took about two weeks for him to get back to normal.
Anyway, long story short, the fleas are back in action, not as badly as before but we want to do something to help him before it gets to that point. Took him to the vet today- got him his vaccinations for the first time, got a test done for heartworms, had a stool sample tested (ends up that he has hookworms... poor little guy!)- and came home with a small tube of Advantage for his fleas, a syringe full of de-wormer, and three months worth of heartworm medication. But, after our experience with the SentryPro, I'm terrified to put anything in him or on him that isn't totally necessary or that could potentially harm him.
The vet said that Advantage doesn't get absorbed into his system like other products do, so it's a lot safer in that regard- that it's very rare that a dog has a reaction to it, and if he does it'd just be irritating to his skin and you could easily wash it off- So I applied it about half an hour ago, and he seems to be normal- a little more tired than usual, but that may just be due to his over-excitement at the vet earlier. He had a reaction to the SentryPro about 15 minutes after application, so I'm hopeful with this...
But does anyone have any opinions on the safety of this product? Anything I should watch out for to make sure he's okay? Any common reactions that anyone knows of? I'd appreciate any feedback I can get- The vet said it was safe, but he was trying to sell it to me. I searched the internet, but all I've found so far are advertisements, which I know are bound to be at least slightly (:p ) biased. So I wanted some real-person feedback on advantage.
Thanks for your time!