3 nights ago after turning out a cupboard I found and applied Johnson's Spot On Flea Drops (expiry date Aug 2010) to my GSD.  By the following evening she appeared to be troubled by what I assumed was 'reverse sneezing' and didn't think too much of it.....assumed she'd got some pollen up her nose from a walk across the fields.

Later that evening I realised there was more of a problem - she sounded more like a pig than a dog making chortling sort of sounds.....we struggled to identify if it was her nose or her throat but then it clicked that it might just have something to do with the flea treatment.

I googled for other people's experiences and at 11.30pm was all set to bath her to rid her of any lingering traces of flea treatment.  However, I put this off until the next morning and since then she seems to be making a steady recovery.  I have given her Piriton to try and combat any allergic reaction.....not sure if this is the right thing to do or not but figured it probably couldn't do anymore harm than had already been done.

Does anyone have any similar experience of this and any advice as to what, if anything, more I might need to do please?

I would strongly suggest to never, ever use any sort of flea or worm treatment that HASN'T been bought from a vet or a pet chemist. The treatments available over the counter are never as effective (sometimes do not work at all) and I have heard far too many horror stories. I wormed a cat once with an over the counter worming tablet and she had a stroke. That was about 15 years ago but only about a year ago I heard of somebody having the exact same thing happen to their cat, then -with the same product.

If your dog seems fine now, all is probably well -but if there is any other problem, see your vet to play safe.

Well her recovery wasn't so good as initially anticipated and she continued to make the strange snorting/ sneezing sounds so on Saturday I took her to local vet who diagnosed an upper respiratory tract infection - although stopped short of committing himself to blaming the flea treatment other than to say Johnsons use a 'different type' of treatment than the product I'd normally use (Frontline).

My next query is....

Could this URTI pass from dog to human as I've now got swollen glands, sore throat, headache, temperature and feel very wobbly-legged.  Or could the flea product have caused this reaction?  Or d'ya think i've just got a viral infection?  I plan on visiting my doctor later but i'm curious as to what you may think too.

Hmmm :-(