This topic is mainly for dog owners.
For the first time in 25 years my golden retriever has caught fleas from something that may have been from where a hedgehog has been.
I paid £30 for something called FRONTLINE that you place on the skin on the back of the dogs neck from its head downwards about three inches and it is supposed to kill the fleas. My daughters dog has also got fleas but she lives eight miles from me and my sons dog has also got fleas and he lives about eight miles away in a different direction. We have all used Frontline on all of our dogs, that being seven different dogs without success. Either this is a new strain of flee or the Frontline is suspect.
My question is, Has anyone had similar problems with fleas and Frontline this year?
I believe Frontline has been less affective for several years now - Effipro is the recommended treatment these days
Been using Frontline Plus on my dogs & cat for donkeys years with no problems 
Few years ago cat started scratching for England & Frontline wasn’t working. Vet prescribed something stronger for 3 months and it worked on her. BUT FLEAS HAD INFESTED THE HOUSE…that took way longer to get rid of them. Had to chuck furniture and boil wash and fumigate whole house.
It was a flea epidemic at the time in my area. Get dawgs to vets asap and start checking the homes because THAT’S THE DIFFICULT PART :exploding_head
Once the home & cat were flea free I went back onto Frontline Plus and no problems since
Good Luck 
Ooops meant to reply to Poster Pollyanna not MintyRox
The strong flea stuff prescribed by vet for my cat was called ‘Bravecto’ and you can get it for dogs
Don’t know whether it’s Prescription Only the ‘strong stuff’ usually is
We use Bravecto on our cat, haven’t seen anty fleas so far
Our cat had signs that he had fleas, but no actual fleas were found on him. This is the first time the three indoor cats we’ve had (this is the sole survivor, the others have since died from cancer, the last being last August) have ever had fleas.
Being an indoor only cat we wondered where he could have got them from, our vet suggested we had walked where a hedgehog had been (we do get them round here, I admit) and that we had carried them back into the house.
We however think that’s rather a remote chance, especially since the symptoms only started after a visit to the vet 
Due to his health conditions (CKD and hyperthyroid) he could only be given a kitten sized dose, but things do seem to have cleared up.
Unfortunately since then he’s developed terminal cancer, and while I don’t think the flea treatment started it, I do wonder if it increased the rapidity of the growth since within a few weeks of treatment the cancer became externally visible, and beyond medical help.
Found dead hedgehog in my back garden but that was years before my cat got fleas
Cat was house and back garden only…just a local flea epidemic which never re-occurred
Empathy re loss of your pusscats. Had to put mine to sleep mid June. Before her time me thinks due to vets refusal to vaccinate during pandemic she had recurring bouts of cat flu and then developed Type Two Diabetes. We got her back with severe change of diet & course of antibiotics and vet was just about to teach me how to inject insulin when she crashed
I view her loss as another victim of the pandemic & lockdown because she was fab until then
Kindest
Not sure about fleas but the ticks have been really bad here. Every time we take our wee cocker out she usually comes back with some ticks on her.
Dave
Perthshire
That is one thing we did have luck with, our cats waited till the pandemic was over before getting ill, and yes I sympathise with your own loss.
I’d heard the tick season was likely going to be bad this year, something to do with the heat of last year, didn’t realise Perthshire was considered a tick area though.
Yep…remember my late mum having to de-tick our ‘Singapore Terrier’ with tweezers
Been lucky with my four late Cockers no ticks…but the dreaded ‘Grass Seeds’ more than once on my hairy darlings may they rest in peace 
Back in Africa, de-ticking was routine after every walk. My Mum was a smoker as well as a dog enthusiast, so the glowing cigarette tip was the ultimate weapon for painless tick removal.
Our dogs were quick learners when it came to personal comfort, and as soon as she lit up the dogs would present the area(s) with a tick, and there might be a brief smell of singed dog hair before the tick leaped off the dog, to be instantly eaten by the dog.
The big blue ticks were easy, but the tiny red ones were more difficult to find. Fortunately the dogs would persist until she had removed them all.
‘Tiny Red Ticks’
I was a child at the time but I do remember my mum [also a smoker] tweezing the big blue ones [blood filed ones?] and complaining about the tiny red spider ones [pre blood sucking?]
With your info I suspect she was doing what your mum did on ‘Honey’ our ‘Singapore Terrier’ who was abandoned along with her sister in the monsoon drain in our garden [locals used to do this on us softie animal loving Brits]
Dad said ‘we can’t take her back to UK’ but he softened and was looking into quarantine when Honey started fitting and was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Still she had a longer life than expected as locals would put puppies/kittens into the drains in the hope they would drown
Dreadful isn’t it ! We are so fortunate in the UK re better animal welfare
Aside…Given Climate Change [and its Raining AGAIN] I wonder why in the UK we are still building ‘Flood Defenses’ instead of Monsoon Drains
Apologies…went off topic a bit …still pinching myself re Bullit MOT with no advisories 
I went to the Vet’s and he gave us some Bravecto and it has cleared my dog of fleas in 72 hours, thank goodness. I hated having to keep him in the one room in the house that had a tiled floor until he was clear of them.
Yep…but you did what was the right thing to do for your dog & home
Generally animals have the same brain structure as us [especially emotions so they can get stressed, depressed, anxious etc]
But what they don’t have is the higher cognitive factors [thinking, reflecting] like us humans
So if e.g. you suddenly surprise your cat it might hiss at you but then recognizes you and calms down
What it doesn’t do is Reflect
“Goodness, it was only my servant [cat]…Crumbs it could have been a dog…I could have been hurt”
That’s what us humans do
Your dog would only have been confused by your behaviour
He won’t be ‘thinking’ “My awful owner has kept me shut in a room for 72 hrs”
They also don’t recognize time as we do…so for him 72 hours is immaterial
That’s why they go ballistic whether you’ve been out of site for 5 minutes or five hours
Delighted the Bravecto worked 
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