This is Benji. The first time we pet sat for Benji he was a happy, crazy, rambunctious one year old jack russell mix. One year later we pat sat for him and he was COMPLETELY the opposite. He was sad, withdrawn and quiet. He didn’t like to be touched, he seemed like he was having seizures and wouldn’t eat. It was so concerning I notified the owner immediately and asked what was wrong.
We weren’t sure Benji would make it until his family came home.
When his family came home they took him to the vet at my suggestion and had him tested for a plethora of things. Tick borne diseases, etc. Everything came back negative. The vet put him on prozac.
A week later we had the opportunity to visit Benji again. He was worse. Way worse.
The prozac did nothing but make him sleepy. To the point we’d have to carry his limp little body outside because he just wouldn’t wake up to walk out on his own. Again, I immediately notified the owner and she agreed to stop giving him the prozac.
A few visits went by with no improvement. Instead of letting Benji out into his fenced yard I decided to try putting a leash on him so I could take him into their front yard. Once I attached the leash to his collar he freaked out like the leash was a hot poker.
That’s when it dawned on me. Maybe it was the flea collar.
I did some research via Google and sure enough, Benji’s symptoms matched flea collar poisoning almost verbatim. I expressed my findings to his mom and she did some research on her own. When she came home she removed the flea collar. This is one of the most popular flea collars that stay on your pet for several months. It’s grey in color. I won’t mention the name.
Within a week or two Benji was back to 80% of his old self!
They then tried a different kind of flea treatment, a topical kind that is applied to the back of the neck/shoulder blades monthly.
Benji got really sick again.
We recently got to visit with Benji again and I honestly couldn’t believe the difference! He still wasn’t his old self, but the improvement was dramatic. He was happy to see us, he was eating like a pig and he happily ran around the yard and wanted to play and, as you can see from the photo above, he was back to demanding belly rubs as soon as we walked in the door!
We’ve visited a lot of pets that use these flea collars with no issue, so it doesn’t affect every pet the same way. If your pet is exhibiting strange behavior or suddenly seems really sick, please take this into consideration.
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