My fragrant pussy (Alternative Flea Control)

Member Name: Diaz

Product:	Alternative Flea Control
Date:	06/12/01 (200 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice smell

Disadvantages: Doesn't work

What has it come to, writing opinions about flea collars! The trouble is I have a sneaking suspicion that Ciao don’t even pay in this category. Still I can count on good old Dooyoo to pay me for my genius (!), so at least it wont be a pointless exercise, other than the warm glow of satisfaction that comes from writing and informing my fellow man, of course.....



Now I normally don’t give a hoot about flea collars and I suspect the majority of the population don’t have any particular thoughts on the subject. However when the cat has fleas and we are being bitten to buggery by the vicious little swines my thoughts turn to flea control, actually they turn to nuking the little sods and showing no mercy



So we decided that we would forgo using frontline drops as usual and go for a “Hartz Control” Herbal Flea Collar. Actually I didn’t go for it, my wife did, of course I was cynical at first, but to be honest I’m cynical most of the time so it’s hard to tell the difference. Still I’m pretty open minded when it comes to herbal remedies, aromatherapy and the like. So I figured it might work, and we might as well give it a go. Besides the family by this point were beginning to look like plague victims we had so many bites so something had to be done.



Opening the packet, the first thing you notice is the aroma, very fresh and lemony and very, very strong. Although I’m equipped with a nose of heroic proportions (it’s big) it rather ironically doesn’t do a very good job at smelling things, it’s more than up to the job of holding up sunglasses but when it comes to smelling things I might as well have a puggy little button gracing my features. Now although I don’t have direct experience of cats noses, it’s commonly accepted that they have very acute senses so placing something this pungent around their necks would seem to me to be a l
ittle cruel, if it made me back off, god knows what it would do to a cat. Still the excess that we cut off from Mulligans collar (Mulligan being a small black cat) made the bin smell lovely for a week.



We then spent the next week being able to detect the cat before she walked into the room by the mist of lemon freshness that hung around her. Which to be honest got a bit irritating as she decided that she would sit on our laps and inflict us with it too. Still we thought piously to ourselves, at least we aren’t putting nasty chemicals into her, so it must be OK.



The way the collar works is it is impregnated with the oils of Citronella (that’d be the lemon smell then), cedarwood and eucalyptus. These oils obviously have a toxic effect not only to the lining of my nose but to the eggs of fleas, though it doesn’t really make it very clear in the packet just how it works. Though it is claimed it will work for twelve months



Now twelve months is a long time, however after a fortnight of fragrant pussy strolling through the house the fleas did not subside, if anything they got worse. The cat suffered as well as us, my daughter Molly seems to be a particularly tasty morsel. As I’ve said, I think the oils target the eggs during the fleas life cycle but a couple of weeks should be long enough for the nasty little gits to clear out. So the cat ended up getting a dose of frontline as well, which knocked the fleas out right away. All in all as a flea collar this seems to be about as effective as my nose is at smelling, still it made a good bin freshener.

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