How about a pet food with natural ingredients that would make kitty or fido less appealing to parasites. I've heard that garlic, for example, is one of those ingredients when it comes to fleas. Could even have foods that were unpleasant to worms. The key is the ingrediants would be something natural that could easily be masked with the tuna and liver flavoring. Would rather pay a little more for food than put pesticide on pets.-- Boots, Jan 04 2003 Daily, feed through de-wormer for equines. Haven't heard of a similar product for smaller animals. http://www.petvetsu...com/wrmheam002.html [Marassa, Oct 04 2004] Flea Terminator Dog Treats http://cookie.allre...FlTrmintrDgTrts.aspThis recipe calls for garlic. May not be safe? [LoriZ, Dec 11 2004] I dunno: fleas are the only thing keeping Princess from hitting fifty pounds. (Not a bad life accomplishment for a tabby: two years ago she was a starving 5 pounder. Today: she's nearly spherical.)-- meowhous, Jan 05 2003 I suspect that such ingredients would also be unpalatable to the pets they are intended to protect. Many cats are reasonably fussy. This might be more convincing if you could come up with some ingredients (with links) that are known to be disliked by parasites and preferably not minded by pets.-- madradish, Jan 05 2003 My housecat always makes it known that she wants to sample a portion of what the other guests are having, but ultimately turns her nose up at anything that is garlic flavored. Is that a case of knowing her own mind, or not eating what's good for her?-- jurist, Jan 05 2003 Soft-gel garlic capsules down their throats (dogs and cats) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays seems to do the flea control trick around here.
I've provided a link for daily equine dewormers. I hesistate to recommend a similar product for smaller pets as it is not "natural" it is a poison. My feelings are that putting poison into an animal on a daily basis can't be good...no matter how small the amount.
There are some natural alternatives which aren't proven to be effective enough in my opinion. So, for now, I do use internal chemicals once every other month to keep the children parasite free. Croissant for the thought, and, believe me, we are working on this problem.....-- Marassa, Jan 05 2003 ah...I should have been more clear. The link I provided is for Strongid which has pyrantel pamoate as the active ingredient. Pyrantel pamoate is a compound belonging to a family classified chemically as tetrahydropyrimidines and it is a man-made chemical poison....useful for what it does, but still a poison. Obviously, there are "natural" things that are toxic or "poison" also (mushrooms, houseplants, certain trees and leaves, etc.) to different species in different amounts.
I was meaning "poison" as man-made and chemical and "natural" as not produced by humans although grown and harvested by them. [Boots] has requested a daily food for domesticated pets that eliminates parasites....something that has not yet been done to my knowledge using homeopathic remedies for parasites (and the food doesn't have to be vegetarian as Boots has given us permission to hide the dewormer taste with liver or tuna flavor....).-- Marassa, Jan 05 2003 Re garlic-hating cat: onions are sort of poisonous to cats, and I thought garlic was too.
Of course, so are irises, and I've had cats chew on them in bouquets.-- meowhous, Jan 06 2003 I have been told that brewers' yeast has this effect. I don't know whether this is accurate.-- LoriZ, Dec 11 2004 random, halfbakery