I recently had an bad issue with fleas, but they seemed to only have been messing with my black dog and not the other 4 on the yard. Since then, I have spread hydrated lyme on the chain spots (50lbs for 7bucks), used a generous ammount to completely cover the spots/yard, tealed that in with my rake, re-lymed it, tealed summore and again every day for about a week while the dogs were off of ther chain spots. On top of that, have thrown some salt down also. I have bathed the dogs with a dish soap. then oiled them with a permethrin 13.3 mix with light oil (as my friend suggested) on the hounds. I yahs seemd to do the trick for me thus far, @ and was not that expensive. Hope this helps..