Dog Lice

[dmey]

Hello everyone,
I have had, well I should say Ayo has had the worst few days of his life. he got all these bumbs on his skin, and then the next day he was full of them, and I couldnt see anything or figure out what it was. And then I noticed a little red dot in the center of each one and then it started moving!!! Ive had dogs my entire life and have dealt with plenty of ticks and fleas, but LICE!! it's been horrible. I had used a frontlineilike product on him before but that was more than five months ago. I never wanted to use that regularly every three months like they say. My last dog, I used only when I saw a tick on him and they would immediately dissapear and it would only happen ,about once a year. but LICE!!! Its been terrible. I used a shampoo that was recommended for him and it did nothing!! Then the next day I couldn't use the frontline because you have to wait 48 hours after having bathed him soooo, I ended up getting another product which is a stronger solution that I had to mix with water, and I hate those things, poisons, they just make me really nervous, so I think I didn't use enough on him.. And anyway it's been three days and finally today I could only find one little tiny one, which I hope was getting ready to die when I killed him! So now I have to give him another spray on sunday and wait till next Thursday to use the frontline. I had to give my cats a frontline for cats and fumigate around the house with the same product. It's been horrible, he sleeps in my room,
So naturally my fear is that pretty soon Im going to have lice as well. So far… I'm clear but..... Oh .. I will never again stop his frontline every three or four months!!!!!

[Lysh]

i had a similar experience, we have mynah birds (pests) nest under our house, of course when the young tried to learn to fly and failed, guess who had herself a game of catch the birdie. Unfortunatly the little twerps (!!) were riddled with bird lice sigh so we bathed everyone and everything and cleaned everything. Within a few weeks they were gone thankfully. But yuck. Us humans got them too for a few days had bites, wasnt very pleasant and very glad its over

[LindaH]

I'm sure there are other sources for the information, but Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats has a section on lice and how to get rid of them.

If you Google "how to get rid of dog lice," you'll come up with lots of hits. One of the first ones on the list that came up for me was from Organic Pet Digest.

I'd want to use the natural remedies first, saving the chemicals as a last-ditch effort (including products like Frontline).

[dmey]

Thanks for the advice. We are now lice free, thankfully. I did some research and it turns out that. Dog lice are a specific species, different from human lice and we cant get them, neither can my cats.(I have two cats) I guess the bird lice are different. I had already given them the frontlin( not actually frontline brand, its called Fipronex, so that they wouldnt catch it. So I was extra worried for no reason. I am not a big fan of chemicals either. Thats why I didnt have Ayo on the regular dosis of frontline but the thing is that we have such a big stray dog problem that , almost every patch of grass in town is flea and tick infested and we end up having to deal with it a lot, so most people use frontline or similar products regularly. I didnt really have that problem with my last dog ( my great dane CHelo). I used to find a couple of ticks on him like once a year and usually they would dissapear with one application instead of having to regularly do preventive treatment with it.
I will read up on the natural remedies, maybe I can use them next time without having to use the chemicals.
I also read that these lice are very very uncommon in countries like United States or European countries,.. again, its the conditions of all the stray dogs that we have here. Its a shame, and there are a lot of organizations that try to help, but in the end, you know, when you have a lot of people that need aid, its really hard to get aid for animals.

Thanks for the help….