FULL ON ASSAULT ON FLEAS!
I live in east Texas near the La border. Similar climate, terrain and vegetation to a lot of the southern states and the Carolina's. Very sandy soil, like powder actually when really dry. Fleas can be a son of a gun. I hate fleas. If I see one flea on a dog I just get madder than hell.
I've been using Termidor and get similar results to what Jack writes about in his book. Takes a double dose it seems just to get maybe a week's positive results. So, I crack open my PBB and read up on Jack's suggested method of eradicating this problem.
I do everything exactly how it says, but instead of Rock Salt, I use Chlorapyrifis spray. It's 2 tbl spoons per gallon. I learned on this project that it takes about 10 gallons to do one dog's circle. My dogs have 13' chains, so you can do the math on the square footage yourself. Here's what I did.
First, I removed a dog from his chain. I washed him with two different antibacterial, fungal and medicated shampoos. I left them in lather for 10 minutes minimum. I removed their house and anything they ate from or drank from. I emptied their house. I sprayed the outside of the house with the Chlorapyrifis. I then soaked the entire chain spot with water. A wet ground will be more conducive to absorbing this stuff and there will be less run off and less wasted product. Next year, I will do this in early spring AFTER a good rain and the ground is already wet b/c this wetting down process literally TRIPLED my time of labor on this project. After the ground was wet and there was no standing water of any kind, I would thoroughly saturate their entire circle with the Chorapyrifis. Next thing I did was dump a 2 cubic square ft of cedar shavings in a large container. I could not find 7 dust in 5lb bags any longer as they've stopped making them. Instead I used Permethrin dust. You can get it in 4lb bags and I simply put 5lbs of permethrin dust with a bag of cedar shavings. I then put 5 shovel fulls in each house. I did rinse the dog free of all soap and let them air dry in above ground pen. Once they were dry, I returned them to their chain spots. It's been over a week now and not a single sign of any flea whatsoever. I did NOT put anything on the dogs themselves. If I do, it will be a Neem Oil spray (also provided courtesy of the PBB). So far so good. I got the Chlorapyrifis idea from a guy who raises horses in my area. Said he had a flea break out like he'd never seen before once. Sprayed the place with this stuff and has never seen a single flea since. I asked when that was and he said, "Bout 10 years ago". I figure I'll get different results being mine's outside, but so far, so good.
Break down
1. Remove dog from chain and shampoo THOROUGHLY!
2. Remove house, water container, food bowl etc, from chain spot.
3. Rake the chain spot clear of all debri
4. Make sure chain area is wet or damp.
5. Spray entire chain spot with Chlorapyrifis
6. Spray the dog house with Chlorapyrifis and LET DRY THOROUGHLY
7. Mix Cedar shavings and permethrin dust and put 5-7 shovel fulls in dog hous
8. Rinse the dog, let him air dry - return him to his chain.
That's it. Hope it works like it has so far and if so, I hope it's something someone else can use and benefit from.
BTW - you have to have a license to buy that stuff, but just get someone to buy it for you. Some farmer or something will do it for you if you act right. It comes in a 2.5 gallon container and I didn't even use half of it.
