I saw the vet yesterday with our recently acquired second greyhound, to ask him for Bravecto for flea prevention. I haven't actually had any flea problems with my dogs for many years, and have normally used frontline 2 monthly.
He pointed out that Bravecto only kills a flea when it has bitten the dog, and he recommended Comfortis, which is also oral but is given monthly, which is apparently more effective as a deterant.
I have made the silly mistake at looking at unfavourable reviews of this on the net, and scared myself witless! The vet said the only likely side effect is vomiting, and I have just one tablet to try.

I must admit I am tempted to return to frontline, tried and tested, especially as we do not have any problems at present. I wondered if anyone else had used Comfortis, and what sort of experience you had?

I used it on 5 dogs when a visiting  Cavalier infected the whole house.  I had tried numerous other spot on types to no avail. Comfortis was amazing: dead and dying fleas were dropping off after only half an hour.  I wouldn't hesitate to use it again. No one had any reaction to it at all and all "visitors"  were gone. I did use a carpet spray as well. Much more effective than Frontline. Having said that, I would not use it unless the dogs actually had fleas.

We have never used spot ons regularly and go to shows/training etc where there are lots of dogs.
With this routine, in over twenty years we have had fleas twice.
Used a spot on and sprayed the house to get rid of them (Frontline spot on did not actually work and kill the fleas! Ended up using a different one).
I know we are not the only ones who do not use monthly spot ons and have no issue so I would recommend maybe not to use a spot on or tablet at all and deal with the issue if it arises.

Agree with the last post - spray the house with Indorex or Acclaim, on a regular basis (maybe twice a year), and you will never have flea problems. Fleas breed in the environment, not on the animals, so if they have nowhere to reproduce, even the occasional one picked up on a walk won't multiply, and no need to give your dogs chemicals every month (which in itself has caused the resistance to Frontline).

Agree I only treat if we have fleas which fortunately has only been twice in 20+ years . I have read the stuff about comfortis and tbh wouldn't use it all but that's just me

Thank you for all your comments. I think I will keep the comfortis in case of a future problem, and just keep combing regularly :-)

> I know we are not the only ones who do not use monthly spot ons and have no issue so I would recommend maybe not to use a spot on or tablet at all and deal with the issue if it arises.

Ditto, haven't used a flea product for a few years now, in fact my Can of Household spray has gone out of date.

Another here that has never used anything for fleas & can count on one hand, the times we have had the odd flea & that's in 57 years of dog ownership! The worst time for fleas, was when I had a dog grooming business, at home, peoples pets used to bring them...luckily for our own dogs, I decided to give up dog grooming.

> I know we are not the only ones who do not use monthly spot ons and have no issue

No, you are not.      Another one here.

And here. No fleas since i was a nipper and never prevent. Horrid stuff. Maybe 1 tick every 5 years despite living in tge country, walkinnin woods and a garden that resembles a national park

It's all very well bragging about how many years we have managed to keep flea free, but when an outbreak does occur and nothing seems to work to get rid of them, we do look for more solutions to the problem.

I had a similar problem with carpet moths 3 years ago, maggots were everywhere that was dark under furniture, eating the carpet before our eyes.  It took some while to find a product that worked, and it was one which advertised itself as having persistency that finally stopped the outbreak in its tracks, without bringing in "experts".

We have only had one flea problem in 43 years of dog ownership, including rescue dog fostering, but my new puppy brought some back last autumn from puppy training.  That was dealt with, we thought, with medicated shampoo, bed washing and carpet spraying.  Then, this summer, we thought we were witnessing shedding of puppy coat, but then fleas were discovered, lots of them, also in my 9 year old girl who was quite unbothered whilst puppy was scratching like mad.

We tried the medicated shampoo again and saw a colossal number of dead fleas washed off, yet once dry, the flea comb found plenty more.  I applied Johnson and Johnson spot on to both dogs, bedding washed at 60 deg C, carpets sprayed and rooms hoovered and bombed.  Out on the back lawn, the flea comb was still raking out 10 to 20 per session on both dogs, so more bathing, bed washing and spraying, plus, now that 3-4 weeks, including a family funeral had gone by, Frontline was applied.  Frontline has a different active ingredient to the Johnson and Johnson spot on, though the latter's ingredient has been tested as being the more effective, according to on-line stats.

Well nothing worked. Fleas were even walking over the spot on application point!  I really don't understand how a medicated shampoo, properly measured and applied, can kill so many fleas, yet leave loads alive.  I am sure I'm witnessing resistance here.

By this stage my 1 year old puppy was scratching himself bald and very sore, day and night and a solution had to be found quickly.  I was made aware of two products that are given as tablets.  I read through many forums and it was clear that some have experienced hyper activity in dogs after dosing, however, it seemed that these were very small dogs and the same dose was applicable to a huge weight range.  I consider it probable that small dogs should only get a half pill dose, whilst 25 kg dogs seem to show no ill effects on a whole tablet.

I chose 57mg of Capstar, the 24 hour product containing a neonicotinoid, the likes of which have been used to treat seeds in agriculture until a recent EU temporary ban for possible bee protection.  We all have probably ingested neonicotinoids for years.  It was not something I wanted to do however, but it has worked.   The dogs were dosed and then kept outside until the majority of fleas were gone, then combed thoroughly and the house bombed again, bedding washed again, carpets and sofas sprayed again.  Two days on and only one young flea has been combed from the 9 year old, none from the puppy.

I am arming myself with some Comfortis now, but will only use it if there is a new infection.  I don't know where these fleas came from, but my guess is that since flea cocoons can remain dormant for two years, some may have survived from the autumn outbreak.  Either that or they came from deer sleeping where the dogs walk in the long grass.  Since a flea’s lifecycle can be anything from two weeks to about eight months, early optimism will have to be tempered by constant vigilance and having Comfortis in reserve will be, well, comforting!!

Oh yes, and we are upgrading to the very latest and most powerful Dyson.