I have been using it for over 7 months now with no side effects. My dog is 15 pounds. It is the only product that has worked to remove the fleas and itching. We were using Frontline Plus before and he always had fleas and constant scratching.

Is there any reason you don't want to use Frontline Plus?
I have used effectively on my dogs for 10 years. I prefer it because it only travels through the skin and not the entire body and kills ticks. I am very careful to follow the directions otherwise it is not effective.

Here is Meghane's post- she's our resident decorating vet- from the Comfortis thread on the Pets forum.

* Posted by meghane (My Page) on
Sat, Sep 27, 08 at 11:11

Vets don't get kickbacks per se. We may get pizza during a lunch meeting from a drug rep, but that's about it. In fact, I was just eating Comfortis-supplied pizza yesterday. Here's what I learned:

1. Comfortis is an organic product, but it is ingested and stays within the body for the entire month or longer. Frontline TopSpot is not systemically absorbed- it stays within the sebaceous glands. Advantage IS systemically absorbed and then redistributed to the skin within a couple of days.

2. Some dogs vomit the first dose, but rarely vomit subsequent doses.

3. It is labeled for dogs older than 10 weeks and greater than 5 pounds.

4. It is transferred through breast milk, which may cause puppies to vomit. The drug rep acted like this wasn't a huge problem, but I've seen too many puppies aspirate and die after vomiting, so to me it IS a huge problem. They don't know how much of the drug gets into the breast milk, and therefore cannot guarantee the puppies are not getting an overdose. And remember, it's only labeled for dogs 10+ weeks and 5+ pounds, so who knows what it does to younger and smaller dogs?

5. 100% of the fleas die within 4 hours. That is VERY impressive since Frontline takes up to 24 hours. Since the fleas die so quickly, it is impossible for them to lay eggs and continue the flea life cycle. Frontline Plus has an insect growth regulator which accomplishes the same task.

6. Comfortis does not kill ticks, leaving your dog susceptible to all of the tick-born diseases unless other measures are taken. The drug rep recommended the PrevenTic collar (amitraz) along with Comfortis. The PrevenTic collar is VERY effective against ticks but is a very potent insecticide and has adverse effects on people and cats.

The dermatologists and parasitologists at school have been recommending people rotate their flea/tick control products monthly to prevent resistance. Comfortis allows another tool in the belt to accomplish this.

Add me to the list. I like it for my two poms, no side effects. I did have to order it online but it works very well.

No, I don't use it, and I wouldn't because it doesn't do anything at all WRT ticks, which are a MUCH greater problem for us than fleas. We've had Goku 7 years and he has never had fleas, but the ticks are a nightmare here in NH (and with his thick, long black-and-gray double coat, you can't find a tick on him until it's already been attached for days and swelled up to the size of a pea). The Preventic tick collars are not practical for him because of that coat, we would basically need to shave a ring around his neck for it! Not cool!

Thanks for writing everyone. Meghan wrote basically the same thing our Vet said, so that's good. Then again, I wonder if he's been eating pizza too? ;^) It's especially reassuring to hear someone has been using it almost a year on a small dog and it's working beautifully. I'm really impressed with it, and was hoping I wouldn't get more first hand horror stories.

I knew it was considered organic as the USDA allows farmers to spray the active ingredient (distilled from a bacteria) on food crops and not loose their organic certification. It was the organic aspect that appealed to me, as opposed to any of the topicals or sprays.

From what I read, the active ingredient remains inside the dog, rather than floating on the surface waiting to get on your hands, your furniture, or wash off in the pond and potentially kill fish if the dog takes an impromptu swim. Besides, I want to pet my dog, not an insecticide. ;^) The fleas die only after they bite the animal, which I guess is why you can still find dying, spastic fleas the next morning.

I use a Preventic collar during the summer on all of our dogs; I figure if you can use amitraz on a food animal (it's in cattle ear tags), it should be okay for a dog running around on a farm. The worst ticks we get here are nymphs; freshly hatched batches that have crawled up a tall blade of grass just waiting for a meal to walk by and then they brush off by the dozens. They're so tiny, they look like specks on the dog, but once they feed and detach, you have teeny tiny ticks everywhere. Preventic takes care of that. I've used it on Pyrenees, Komondok, and a rough Collie that we fostered some years back; some pretty darned hairy breeds, and it worked like a charm. I didn't have to shave their necks, just parted and "threaded" it through the hair so that it was close to the skin. Maybe that would work for Goku?

I use it on our labs but not on my elderly 8 lb dog. One of the labs got sick the first time (vomit) but they've been fine ever since.

One warning--my dogs have NEVER taken anything from my kitchen counters (and I leave lots of toddler snacks up there) but I left their comfortis up there and one of them pulled it down and they ripped open the package. Luckily it only had 2 doses left and neither one got sick. The package was licked clean. They have access to their heartworm pills and have never done anything to them. So, this stuff must smell pretty darn good to them.

I don't use the stuff you put on their backs anymore because my kiddo loves to grab them around the necks and give them hugs and lay on them when watching tv. I don't want the poison to get all over him.

littledog, Goku's ruff is extremely thick, especially at the front and sides - for a puppymill Keeshond he has quite the coat. You really have to dig to find skin in the front! We did try the Preventic when we were living in the woods, aka Tick Hell, but my trainer, my vet, and I were all not very successful in getting the collar through that mass of fluff down to the skin level and then keeping it there without cinching it down unpleasantly tight because the slippery/downy/flossy undercoat just crept right in wherever it wanted to be and pushed the collar away. We were fooling with that dang collar all the time and he was constantly pawing at it because of how snug we had to have it to keep it near enough skin to be at all effective. We got rid of it within days. When I looked into it again I found that I'm also not overwhelmingly comfortable with the product itself (it's actually a MAOI inhibitor antidepressant, with a list of food and drug interactions as long as your arm, and thus does actually pose some risk to me), clearly you are and that's great for you. We do not live on a farm and no longer live or walk in deep woods, so the Frontline is sufficient.

Since that post, we have had more experience with Comfortis.

I've seen several dogs freak out and not eat for days after getting Comfortis. I don't know if it was nausea or if the dying fleas taking their last meals got the dogs into really bad allergic reactions. Most have been smaller dogs.

After a couple of months of use, several clients have complained that Comfortis isn't working for a full month any more. I've seen some flea-allergic dermatitis in dogs treated with Comfortis.

I haven't used it on my own dogs despite being given free doses from the drug rep. I gave them to some clients who needed them more than me. I hate having to use anything on my dogs, but given the choice of a topical vs a systemic medication, I'll choose topical any day.

Bottom line- I still use and recommend Frontline Plus unless there has been a resistance issue with it, which I have seen upon occasion. I haven't mentioned Comfortis to any clients after seeing the reactions and the treatment failures.

My most recent 2 cents.