I used to work in a vet's office years ago and my vet used Advantage flea control. I was terribly disappointed with the company, Bayer, decided to stop making our long time trusted flea remedy (over 16 years we have used it without fail!) Advantage. So my only alternative was to use the new Advantage II because Frontline did not work here when I tried it a few years ago.
I am basing this review on two consecutive treatments of the product on our pets....2 dogs (one 60 pound dog and one 10 pound dog) and one 20 year old cat that is 5 pounds. We did not get any compensation for our review.
With all that said I will go into how we had been applying Advantage for years without fail! We never had fleas on any of our pets...and we had plenty of pets and lived in the hot southern United States. So, it is flea season on...lol. I was taught by my veterinarian how to dose the Advantage by using a particular amount of the medicine for the weight of the animal. You can do this with Revolution I have since learned, too. Where you take the largest tube available, the 100 plus dog tube, and divide that up to treat smaller animals. It works and saves you a lot of money. We did this for 16 years and never had an issue. We also did not have to reapply every month...but usually it would last over a month...sometimes even two months on our pets! It really did the trick. So, I decided to dose my pets using the same method with Advantage II /2, at first.
I dosed my pets using the method I just mentioned. It did not work well. They still had fleas. Even after a week, they still had fleas. They did not have a ton of fleas, to begin with. It was not a heavy infestation. So, this product should have worked. I applied it the proper areas on the pets. I applied plenty of the fluid. And yet they still had some fleas. Not a lot of fleas left...but fleas. We do not have carpet at all in our home to harbour fleas or their eggs. But having any on the animals means... no dogs in the living room. So my daughter's new dog that she got from the pound, a little dachshund, can not come and sleep with her because it still has fleas! She can't bring it in the living room and play with it because it had fleas still. Thanks Bayer. I called Bayer and they reassured me that the amount of the main ingredient is still the same and that they only added a new chemical to do something else. Well, I told the guy, who was not friendly, that it did not work at all as well as the old product. He didn't seem to care. Did not offer any help nor even want the information from the tube about the product. Great customer service.
So, my mom gave me 2 tubes to pay me back for the old Advantage I had given her. Wish I had kept it now. So, I put the one tube of large dog on the 60 pound and the ten pound dogs. I then took the large cat tube, 9 pounds and up, and put on my 5 pound cat. And you know what. They still had fleas. It did not work. They still have fleas. We thought they had gotten rid of them. At first it seemed to work. We didn't check them thoroughly enough, I guess. Because when my mom had let the dogs in while we were away for a day, we somehow got fleas in our home. We have hard wood floors and yet have had to battle a mild flea infestation for over a month because of this crappy product, Advantage II /2. It does not work. My animals did not even try to run from you when you go to put it on them! Usually all of them will try to get away...they do not like the chemicals. But with the new Advantage II /2 they don't care...hmm...why? Maybe because it does not work...has no effective ingredients in it?
So, I got out my last tube of Advantage original for large dogs and broke it open. I put it on my cat and 2 dogs and guess what? No fleas. Not a single one. Well, actually one...dead.
My mom recently bought another quality Bayer product, K-9 Advantix and put it on her 3 dogs. She used one tube for dog. And guess what? Still has fleas. They scratch like crazy. Did nothing to them. What gives?
It pains me because I do not want to put different chemicals on my 20 year old cat. She has been through so much already this year. She went through a trauma when a new cat (now gone cat) gave her herpes and a bacterial infection from wheat litter hit then too. She almost died. She got an eye ulcer and all she wants to do is be with us. So, it is really cruddy to deny my 20 year old cat access to our couch at night to get loving because Bayer can not sell consumers a product that actually works properly. It is total b.s.
