Get Rid of Fleas…Fast! My Natural Flea Remedy

When I got back from my week in Oregon, I was greeted by my fluffy and energetic Goldendoodle. As I was petting him (once he had stopped spinning and jumping for joy) I noticed that he was COVERED in flea eggs on his legs. Upon further inspection I saw grown ups crawling all up and down his back.

NOT COOL. Not cool at all. Fleas are so gross and I’m almost embarrassed even admitting that we had a problem. They are basically like lice on kids. Fleas are also so hard to get rid of!

Now I’m not sure if he had them when I left but if he did they definitely weren’t so bad. I have two theories.

1. My husband turns off the A/C when I leave because he is African and claims he ‘doesn’t feel the heat’. Maybe it was the perfect humidity and incubating temperature for the eggs?
2. Hurricane Irma blew through while I was gone (talk about good timing on my part) so maybe when they went outside the fleas in the yard saw two boats and hopped on board.

It could be either. Or neither. But we had to get rid of them!

At this time we are still in the process of elimination but I wanted to share my method with you guys!

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So I always keep a flea spray/repellent in our cleaning closet and I’ve been spraying it on all of the surfaces that will accept it. Carpet, linens, dogs, anything. We have one that is ‘natural’ and it even smells pretty good!

My favorite ‘flea shampoo’ is a mixture of blue dawn dish soap and white vinegar.

I give them a good scrub with this stuff and the fleas die IMMEDIATELY. I swear some of them even explode on impact. Probably not true but I could swear it looks like that!

After the initial bath I mixed up some coconut oil and peppermint oil and rubbed him down with that. Peppermint oil is supposedly a flea repellent, and I hoped that it would keep more from coming in from outside. That night I sat down with Niko and got another mixture of blue dawn and warm water and picked the fleas and eggs off with a flea comb. When you see a live one, dip the comb in the mix, get the flea, then deposit said flea into the mixture.

BOOM. DEAD.

I waited a day and then did another bath/comb over.

At this point I very rarely see a flea crawling on him (I gave him the second bath yesterday). I will probably give each dog another bath tomorrow or Friday  just to be thorough.

We plan to get some flea spray to cover our backyard so we can cut them off at the source, which I would recommend you do too!

Oh, and laundry. Their bedding is getting washed and washed again!

Last year we bought my big dog a flea collar by Seresto and it worked like a charm. We didn’t see a flea on him all year! We obviously need to get another one because ours expired a couple of months ago! They are pricey but SO worth it.

Do you have any tips or tricks on getting rid of fleas once and for all?