Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats (25 page)

Use an herbal flea powder.
You’ll find them in pet stores and natural food stores, or
you can make your own. Combine one part each of as many of these powdered herbs as you can find: eucalyptus, rosemary, fennel, yellow dock, wormwood, and rue. Put this mixture in a shaker-top jar, such as a jar for parsley flakes.

Apply the flea powder sparingly to your pet’s coat by brushing backward with your hand or the comb and sprinkling it into the base of the hairs, especially on the neck, back, and belly. To combat severe infestations, use several times a week. Afterward, put your animal friend outside for a while so the disgruntled tenants vacate in the yard and not in your house. Some herbal flea powders also contain natural pyrethrins, which are not strong flea-killers but do seem to greatly discourage them.

Use an herbal flea collar.
These are impregnated with insect-repellent herbal oils. Some are made to be “recharged” with the oils and used again. Buy them at natural food stores.

Try a natural skin tonic.
The animal herbalist Juliette de Bairacli-Levy recommends this lemon skin tonic, which many of my clients successfully use on their pets for a general skin toner, parasite repellent, and treatment for mange.

Thinly slice a whole lemon, including the peel. Add it to 1 pint of near-boiling water and let it steep overnight. The next day, sponge the solution onto the animal’s skin and let it dry. You can use this daily for severe skin problems involving fleas. It is a source of natural flea-killing substances such as d-limonene and other healing ingredients found in the whole lemon.

Add ample nutritional or brewer’s yeast
and garlic to the diet.
Some studies show yeast supplementation significantly reduces flea numbers, though others indicate no effect. My experience with using yeast is that it has some favorable effect, particularly if the animal’s health is good. You can also rub it directly into the animal’s hair. Many people also praise the value of garlic as a flea repellent, though so far studies do not support this.

If these methods do not control the fleas sufficiently, take the following steps.

Get your carpets treated with a special
anti-flea mineral salt.
There have been some developments in safe flea control. My clients report success with a service that applies or sells relatively nontoxic mineral salts for treating carpets. (Fleabusters is the company recommended.) Effective for up to a year, the products safely kill fleas and their developing forms over a few week’s time.

Once or twice a year, sprinkle natural, unrefined
diatomaceous earth along walls,
under furniture, and in cracks and crevices
that you cannot access with a vacuum.
This product, which resembles chalky rock, is really the fossilized remains of one-celled algae. Though direct skin contact is harmless to pets and people, it is bad news for many insects and their larvae, including fleas. The fine particles in the earth kill insects by attacking the waxy coating that covers their external skeletons. The insects then dry out and die.

I do not recommend using diatomaceous earth frequently or directly on your animal—mostly because of the irritating dust that can be breathed in by both of you. It is also messy. Be careful about breathing it in. Wear a dust mask when applying. It is not toxic, but inhaling even the natural, unrefined form of this dust can irritate the nasal passages.

Important:
Do not use the type of diatomaceous earth that is sold for swimming pool filters. It has been very finely ground, and the tiny particles can be breathed into the lungs and cause chronic inflammation.

Use a spray or powder containing
pyrethrins or natural pyrethrum.
These are the least toxic of all the insecticides used on pets, and they are found in both conventional and natural flea-control products. For a more lasting effect, use a microencapsulated product, which is perhaps labeled “slow release.” Repeat the applications as you simultaneously use the carpet treatment system or diatomaceous earth. This will help kill both adult fleas and developing fleas at the same time.

For more information concerning both external and internal parasites, as well as skin problems in general, see
Skin Parasites
,
Worms
, and
Skin Problems
.

COMMON INGREDIENTS IN FLEA-CONTROL PRODUCTS

ORGANOCHLORINES

Dichlorophene, DMC, Endosulphan, Endrin, Heptachlor, Isobenzan, Lindane (Gamma BHC), Methoxy-chlor, Paradichlorobenzene, Toxaphene, TDE. DDT, DDE, Aldrin, Dieldrin,
and
Chlordane
.

Effects:
Exaggerated responses to touch, light, and sound. Spasms or tremors appear (usually first in the face), progressing to epilepsy-like seizures, often followed by death. No known antidote. Many members of this group have been shown to cause cancer in experimental animals. Because of concern about carcinogenic potential, Lindane was banned as an indoor fumigant in 1986.

Notes:
Less immediately toxic than carbamates, which have largely replaced them. But they accumulate in tissues and persist for years in the environment (e.g., DDT was banned in 1972, but it’s still found in 55 percent of Americans). Insects have developed resistance to many. Cats are particularly vulnerable to this group, especially to Lindane, DDT, and Chlordane. Dogs are susceptible to Toxaphene and DDE.

SPOT-ON TYPE INSECTICIDES

Fipronil, Imidacloprid, Permethrin, Pyriproxyfen
.

Effects:
New neurotoxins, the active ingredients of products to be applied to the skin and absorbed into the body. When fleas jump on and bite the poison kills them.

Notes:
Many toxic effects. Has caused cancer in animals, altered thyroid hormone levels, caused seizures and severe skin disease in some animals, with parts of the skin coming off, difficult breathing, enlarged livers, miscarriages, and many other effects.

Methoprene

Effects:
Considered nontoxic, but usually combined with toxic chemicals to kill adult fleas.

Notes:
A growth regulator used in foggers or commercial sprays to inhibit fleas from hatching from the pupal stage. Only effective indoors. Implicated in killing aquatic life in streams and creeks as it washes off treated animals.

Rotenone and other cube resins

Effects:
Skin irritation. Overdose can cause death through paralysis of respiration. Chronic exposure may injure liver and kidneys.

Notes:
Derived from a poisonous tropical legume. Considered fairly toxic to mammals. Loses much potency in presence of light and oxygen; has little residual action. Slower-acting but more potent than Pyrethrin. Found in shampoos, dips, and powders.

D-Limonene

Effects:
Toxic signs in cats: excess salivation, weakness, muscle tremors. No toxic effects reported in dogs.

Notes:
Natural citrus extract. Dissolves flea’s waxy coating, causing dehydration and death. Kills 99 percent of fleas if shampoo lather left on for ten minutes.

Natural Pyrethrins and Synthetic Pyrethroids Allethrin, Resmethrin, and Permethrin.

Effects:
Can cause allergic dermatitis and systemic allergic reactions. Large amounts may cause nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, headaches, and other central nervous system disturbances, but rapidly detoxified in the intestines. Prolonged use may cause slight liver damage. Permethrin may be a slight carcinogen (according to mice studies).

Notes:
Labeled nontoxic. Considered least toxic to mammals of all insecticides. Derived from chrysanthemums. Mostly in aerosol sprays, sometimes in flea shampoos and sprays. Causes rapid paralysis of insect nervous system (many die, but many also recover in a few hours, so repeat applications are necessary). Synergists may be added to inhibit flea’s detoxification process and increase residual effect.

Arecoline Hydrobromide

Effects:
Vomiting, unconsciousness, diarrhea, and depression. Though natural, it must be considered a potentially toxic substance.

Notes:
The active compound found in the areca nut, an Oriental folk remedy for worms, it has long been used in tapeworm control. Considered unsafe for cats. Can cause undesirable responses in dogs also.

Benzyl Benzoate

Effects:
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and a slowing of the heartbeat and breathing rate.

Notes:
Often used for mange control. Can be toxic if applied over too large an area or too often. Cats more susceptible, but dogs occasionally die from excessive use.

Piperonyl Butoxide, N-octylbicycloheptene dicarosimide E

Effects:
Large doses cause vomiting and diarrhea.

Notes:
Not true insecticides. Added to other ingredients to block flea’s detoxification process and increase effectiveness.

Boric acid derivatives (Fleabusters Rx for Fleas)

Effects:
Ingestion may cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rash, dizziness.

Notes:
Mineral salts applied to carpets to kill developing fleas. Low toxicity. Reported to be very effective for up to a year.

Micro-encapsulation Process

Effects:
Reduces toxicity of insecticides to pets and people because the tiny capsules pass through intestines before all their contents are absorbed.

Notes:
Use of thin nylon or urea shell around minute bits of insecticide, used for sustained release and longer action. Less effective if used with flea repellents.

CHAPTER 8

CREATING A HEALTHIER ENVIRONMENT

N
o matter where we have lived, Richard and I (Susan) have always made sure to have a beautiful garden, filled with flowering shrubs and perennials and edibles. Caring for our piece of paradise often fills the better part of a weekend. We enjoy it, of course, or we wouldn’t do it.

Yet sometimes we get so busy snipping off branches or pulling up weeds that we lose touch with the slower pace of life’s mysteries constantly unfolding before us. When we get too wrapped up in our activity, it helps to take a lesson from our cat. Like all cats, he’s quite adept at just sitting and looking.

Today was one of those times. Putting aside my projects, I went out to the yard to just sit and look. Settling down in an out-of-the-way spot under a wisteria, I gazed down a seldom-used path. It was teeming with ants among the small, leafy weeds that thrive in shady places that are hard to hoe.

At first, a glimmer of gardener thoughts passed through my mind. Were these carpenter ants? Should I destroy them so they don’t destroy our home? Should I pull up some of those weeds before they go to seed? But letting these thoughts pass on by, I calmed down and returned to just looking.

No longer filtering the scene through gardener eyes, I began to see more deeply. The weeds had a beauty of their own, as lush and diverse as a forest floor. Even the ants were admirable, so energetic and so enduring. They had crawled over this land long before we humans appeared. And despite all the wars we wage upon them, ants still thrive and will probably outlive us. It felt good to just let them be.

I felt humbled at how little I understood about the thousands of backyard plants and animals whose lives were affected by my actions.

A small moment. But without such moments in our busy lives we might gradually detach ourselves from nature and unwittingly accept the idea that we are free to tamper with the web of life.

With each passing year, we humans dump innumerable tons of toxins into the web of life, destroy millions of forest acres, and hasten the extinction of many species, some that we don’t even know about. We further weaken the thin layer of ozone that protects us from the sun’s radiation. We jam the airwaves with millions of electronic signals whose effects on our bioelectric fields we barely understand. Surely, we wouldn’t tolerate these actions if we realized how profoundly they affect the fate of every living thing, including ourselves, our children, and our animals.

A shocking national survey by the Public Health Service showed that Americans have hundreds of toxic chemicals stored in our fatty tissues. Nearly all of us have such harmful substances as dioxin, benzene, styrene, and ethyl phenol. A significant majority have PCBs, radioactive isotopes, creosote, lead and other heavy metals, asbestos, and numerous pesticides.

Surely, these are also contained in the bodies of our pets, perhaps in greater proportions because of their smaller sizes.

DIRT IS DIRTIER NOW