The thought of a veterinary school never crossed my mind. I will surely look into that. Thank you Mariend and Sue for bringing that up. Wow mariend, the secretary at my vet office said that he could be allergic to a number of different things. I never thought sun light could be one of them! I bet that was shocking to you when you first found out about it. We live in an apartment building. They do use the fertilizer on their grass but they haven't for about 6 months now. We have only lived here for about a year though, so again Stanley would have been having his issues way before then. Lydia, I used to shampoo my carpets VERY frequently before we moved here. Now I never do it as I'm not sure if I am allowed to do it on my own. That was a good thought though. I have book marked the page that you put a link to. I will show it to DH. Thank you so much. Lisa, the vet just mentioned his ears the last time we were there. She said that they look great and she suggested that I continue with the drops twice a week for the rest of his life. So I will surely do that. And I am thinking that we are going to go ahead with the thyroid testing first. Hopefully they will find something then. That is what my vet is really pushing for. And then if nothing shows up from that I guess the only thing left to do then would be the allergy testing. I am very glad that i have posted this. Honestly at this point DH feels just really peeved with the vets. We have been to 2 now within the last 3 years. And like I said, the one said it was a bad habit. DH feels that an allergy test should have been discussed as an option from the very beginning with this 2nd vet once they told us it was allergies. I'm kinda confused as to why it wasn't mentioned before now as well. We didn't even know it was an option. I mean I knew that humans had them done but I'd never heard of it being done on a pet before. So here we are, now having spent well over $1,000 in vet bills alone and we have made absolutely no progress at all. We aren't rich by any means. Sorry for venting. Anyway, I think it has helped DH to see that we aren't the only ones that have had to deal with this. Thank you for sharing your own stories and thank you again for your ideas and thoughts.

I would not use off because they lick themselves. If you ever go to the rain forest take deet or you will be sorry. When skin so soft was popular tourist were taking it to the rainforests. They learned the hard way it doesn't work and it probably attracted mosquitoes if there is a fragrance in it.

First of all, when you have a severe flea infestation, fleas tend to be everywhere... where did they come from is an important question to answer, and that is probably the main weak point when treating them. If you are using Frontline regularly and still seeing fleas, then there is a source for them you are not dealing with. Frontline is very effective in killing fleas ON your pet, but if you have an unlimited supply outdoors (assuming your have a pet that goes in an out) you will never be over the problem. Frontline takes about 48 hours to kill a flea, so seeing fleas on your pet does not mean they are not dead... they are just not dead YET. Capstar is also VERY effective at killing fleas, FAST... but only lasts maybe 24 hours, so, again, if you have a source for the fleas you are not addressing, this will do little to help your situation. Flea Busters is a good company and they will help CONTROL the in house flea problem, but will do nothing to help if you ultimately if you have a source for the fleas outdoors. You need to address the outdoor, yard situation or you will be beating your head against a wall. The powder (boric acid basically) is very safe for your pets the way they apply it (I personally do NOT recommend putting boric acid powder directly on your pets as the resulting cloud of powder can easily be inhaled leading to horrific respiratory issues that are nearly impossible to treat). That boric acid they lay down in the carpet and furniture is excellent at dealing with the 'dormancy' issue as it dessicates the fleas pretty well (though the pupal stage is pretty resistant to this desiccation, but once the pupae hatch, they're immediately dried out and die). Eggs are resistant, too, but will usually not remain dormant if there is sufficient heat or moisture... just because they CAN sit dormant does not mean they will. I think 2 years is a bit of an exaggeration, too. Get an exterminator if you do not feel comfortable doing your outdoors. Try to minimize visiting cats and opossums to your yard (and other wild mammals), as these are mostly how the fleas got there to begin with. Good luck!

We just adopted a 2 year old gray DSH from a shelter, after he'd been there for 7 mos, and his elderly owner died and he went into the system. We are giving everyone lots of love, but one of our existing cats only tolerates him (Clyde, a 6yo male) but our 6yo female (Bonnie) hates him, hisses and growls at him, too. Our new guy, Smokey, gets upset and runs away, but sometimes he stands his ground and stares at her. He does do things to piss them off - like getting in their faces all the time, even in the litter box - but he is very social and I think he actually likes other cats. He likes people, too, whereas Bonnie & Clyde are afraid of other people. He is very sweet most of the time, even licks us, and sleeps with us, but he hardly sleeps more than 2 hrs at a time, with us in bed with him, and yowls at night sometimes. Sometimes he wakes up and runs over to us talking to see if we're "alive", and that settles him down. But this yowling is different and we can't figure it out. Cuddling him doesn't help. Yelling (duh) doesn't work. Calling him back to bed doesn't work. We can't force him to settle down because he is also a hugely muscular cat at 11 lbs and eats a full can and still wants more. He was checked out by our vet, and the shelter one as well, and I'm taking him to a new vet Tuesday. We think he might have worms, but probably not hyperthyroid as he's not losing weight. He just talks alot and yowls around 6am and there's no stopping him. The food/water/litter are all checked before bedtime and are fine. Plenty of toys lying around. Plenty of perch & warm sofa/bed space. Even a mild sedative (Xanax - from our Vet) had minimal effect. He's unsteady on his feet, but doesn't sleep more or eat less! We may have made his crying worse by feeding him even when he is crying at dinner time, instead of waiting for him to stop. Problem is, he doesn't stop, and we have 2 other well-behaved cats who are also hungry! We have tried to ignore his yowling, and then he "acts out" and we find he's knocked over our shelf products, or is on top of the TV cabinet or something falls and we know where he is, still yowling. Impossible to ignore with (possibly) dangerous products falling & breaking. He has an amazing amount of energy, and uses it at night, despite playing with (all of them) during the day. On his own, he does sleep more than 2 hours, I've noticed, just not with us. We love him and want to keep him, but after a month of little sleep we're trying clicker training (minimal effect) and we're thinking of trying a dog barking collar. Has anyone thought of using a dog stop barking collar (static) to control yowling? Would it even work on a cat? Is is safe? We're at our wits end. Could he be depressed, lonely or bored? Does he need a kitty anti-depressive? I don't want to have to drug him for the rest of his life - I think he wants attention, but at 5 am in a 1 bedroom apt. with neighbors it's too much for us to bear. Any help appreciated.