Hi, Julie. Unfortunately, frontline seems to have been overused and fleas have developed resistance to it. Advantage works but with your cat that is sensitive I would recommend Adams flea and tick spray with IGR.
Also, are these indoor cats? The most important thing is to thouroughly clean and deflea the house. I really like boric acid or diamectacous earth for this, although for the first time, I might bomb with a pyrethrin or permethrin mixed with IGR. Make sure you vacuum and wash all bedding in super hot water first.
If the cats will let you, you might want to wash them with Adams flea and tick shampoo with IGR.
I also think Brewers Yeast with garlic is helpful.
Finally, seriously look at their health. Especially the one with allergies. Cats prone to fleas often have health issues. My cat that had flea problems had thyroid cancer.
Fish oil will do amazing things for allergies. All my pets get fish oil daily.
Since I switched all my pets to a completely raw diet I can't believe how much the health has changed. And yes, my vet is very supportive. In fact, she encouraged me to get the two older cats converted. The youngest cat was already raw fed and all three dogs were raw fed for over one year when I started using her.
My youngest cat knows nothing but raw and he is the picture of health. Sleek, muscular and his coat looks like its been oiled it's so shiny.
Tracy

Will you share some of your raw recipes?

I've heard Dawn is good for fleas and peppermint oil.

Hi Tracey,

How do you give the fish oil to your cats? Cut up a capsule or have them take it whole? My dog has terrible allergies. I wonder if giving him fish oil everyday would help.

Kelly

I use a fish oil in a squirt bottle. However, this last bottle I bought, I suspect was old, as the cats and small dogs won't eat it. So, I've gone back to sticking a needle in a capsule and squeezing it on their food.
My Doberman is easy. I put the capsules in her bowl and she just eats them.
For the raw diet, I use what's called a prey diet raw which is very simple. 80% muscle meat ( predominantly red meat and heart), %10 bone and %10 organ with that broken down into %5 liver, %5 other organs. I use that as a rough guide and the cats don't need as much bone. You can judge the bone based off stool consistency, bone firms up the stools.
Cats are a little harder to convert than dogs, mainly because they can get very sick if you starve them. My cats took to it very easily. I think because they've eaten baby doves and bunnies forever. And the kitten was feral and very young when I started him, maybe 5 weeks, he probably never tasted real cat food.
My little dogs are a little fussy but we make concessions.
Oh, they also get some cooked or raw eggs, a few times a week, since I give them any broken yokes or cracked eggs.
I get my food from a coop and the best deal is that we get marked down red meat from groceries for 50 cents a pound once a week, our "cheap meat" deals. For all the meat I buy, I average about $1.00 a pound but as I start using more of the cheap meat it's getting much cheaper.
Feed lots of heart, as it had a lot of Taurine, essential for cats, and I don't think it's as good to peregrine too much as taurine degrades when peregrine.
One thing common in cats is tooth resorption. My vet feels its from vitamin D toxicity in commercial cat foods. Both my older cats have bad tooth resorption. Will be interesting to see what my kitten's teeth look like on an all raw diet.

The fish oil is a good suggestion, I've noticed that my dogs' hair is a lot softer and shinier since I started giving it to them. For them, I just put a (human) pill in their food bowl and they eat it. I think I might have poked a hole in it the first time I gave it to them so they could smell it. For the cats I squeeze it onto wet food.

Unfortunately my old cat will not stand for being kept inside too long, and he won't use a litter box, even a brand new one. He will do totally annoying things like pee in the dogs' food bowls if we try to make him stay in:). He wants to stay in a lot when it's cold, but in the summertime, he just comes in to eat and be petted. He was a totally outdoor cat when we got him at about age 7, he's always had the flea allergy and the vet says he's healthy otherwise.

He does let me bathe him, though he hates it. I might try the flea shampoo or the Adams, thanks for the suggestions.

Make sure to get the bed area and any "hanging out" areas, even if he goes outside. Diatomaceous earth is cheap and great to sprinkle all over, you can use it on the yard, beds, etc. I get it (food grade) for $25 at the feed store for 50 pounds and it goes a long way.

I remember the "summermare" of 2005. The winter of 2004 was mild and it gave way to the most severe flea infestation I have ever known in my life nor have I ever heard. We had NO pets and NO carpet; only hard wood floors. They were EVERYWHERE. I'm embarrassed to say they even ended up in the bed, the car and hitched a ride to the bindery although it had nothing to do with our hygiene but everything to do with opportune weather. Perhaps it was because we didn't have pets we weren't looking out for them. DH was lazy with the weeds and the yard, though. He taped himself into trash bags before heading out to that section of the neglected yard to weed eat! Mice brought them into the shop (and stray cats, I suppose). Horrible, horrible! The neighbor's dog died from the fleas! The mail carrier complained of flea infestations all over town and showed us all the bite marks on his legs and arms. Bill will tell you. I was a maniac scrubbing, vacuuming and sweeping day and night, the wee hours of the mornings, developing all types of home remedy concoctions from Vicks Vapor Rub to Tea Tree Oil and spraying everywhere. Eventually, I purchased some seven dust that went, literally, everywhere to finally rid ourselves of them in the home, the yard, the car, the shop and the bindery.

An absolute nightmare and I'm wondering if I need to get ready for another year like this!

bon

I would recommend Comfortis for the dogs. You can get it at the vet for $16 or so a dose. It is a chewable tablet that stays in their system for a month, killing any fleas which bite them. I am not sure if they have it for cats, but Advantix is said to be very good as a topical. My main reason for posting was to say give the Comfortis a shot...it has changed my life and my dog's life as well!