Healthy and Green Living

Adapted from The Healthy Pet Manual: A Guide to the Prevention and Treatment of Cancer by Deborah Straw (Healing Arts Press, 2005).

What are your options for flea and tick control if you do not wish to use sprays, pills, or injections? Several healthy alternatives exist.

• Apply herbal flea powder “sparingly” to your pet’s coat.

• Use herbal flea collars.

• Apply natural skin tonic as a general skin toner, parasite repellent, and mange treatment.

• Add nutritional or brewer’s yeast and garlic to the animal’s diet.

• Treat your carpets with a special antiflea mineral salt.

• Occasionally (once or twice a year) sprinkle natural, unrefined diatomaceous earth (which kills insects) along your walls, under your furniture, and in cracks where you cannot vacuum, but not directly on your animals.

• Use sprays or powders containing pyrethrins or natural pyrethrums, which are the least toxic of all insecticides used on pets.

• Another gentle weapon against fleas is a good flea comb with tightly spaced teeth. Your pet should be combed frequently during flea season, probably every day. When you find fleas, drop them into a bucket of soap suds to kill them and stop their spread.

• Try all-natural, preservative-free foods that are good remedies for or preventors of fleas: along with brewer’s yeast, try raw garlic, zinc, and barley grass concentrates. Check with your veterinarian regarding the proper dosages depending on weight.

• Natural repellents do exist. Essential oils such as citronella, tea tree, wintergreen, and eucalyptus have been shown to work.

• Vacuum all surfaces where fleas and their eggs may live, and wash blankets and sheets in hot water.