The biggest issue with fleas is you need to treat the area where the dog lives as well. On the odd occasion we've had fleas, it's a major battle. We bathe the dogs with flea shampoo multiple times several days apart. But also, all the carpets, dog bedding, our bedding, furniture, etc. need to be treated as well. Otherwise the eggs just continue to hatch and you still have fleas. It can be a nightmare. Remember to treat your vacuum cleaner as well. The eggs will also live there. For us it usually means a 2-3 week adventure.

When I feel necessary, which hasn't been often, I use Advantage on the dogs and cats, even my barn cats and I don't have fleas. I think you have to be careful with the collars, especially with cats because the clean themselves. I put one on a young cat once, she was about 8 months old and it made her terribly sick. Took the collar off and she was fine in less than 24 hours. We live in the woods and thank heavens, we haven't had a problem with ticks.

We have never had fleas but we do get lots of ticks...once we use Advantage no issues.

I've found it really depends. I used the Advantage on my cats and dogs, it did nothing for my cat but when I put the flea collar on her, it worked great. The Advantage also did nothing for my dogs, one is over 100 lbs and the other around 30. My little one I put on the all in one pill (its new so I don't remember the name, starts with a T) and it works pretty good, it also treats heartworms, etc. When my daughter took her to be groomed she said she only had about 4 fleas on her which was pretty good. I think sometimes its the area that makes some of this stuff work and not the other. My daughter who grooms pets says the flea collars are better for cats and some smaller dogs.

I put a flea collar on a weenie dog we had and it took all the hair right off his neck! Never again!

I have always used the drops, which ever the vet recommends that year. One year I had to buy a flea collar too. This year I asked and he said to use Seresto. It's expensive, over $70 with a $20 rebate, but it works. In the long run it's cheaper than drops, which always worked for us. Our cats are indoor cats but we do have the windows open.

There is a chemical in the flea collars that is poisonous to animals. It can cause kidney failure and other icky things. I wouldnt ever use a collar on any of my babies.

we use Frontline it works great

I live in the Atlanta area where fleas, ticks and mosquitoes are a real problem. My vet said that flea collars are pretty good for ticks but nothing beats a systemic medication (I use Trifexis but others mentioned their favorites) from the vet. With Trifexis, I don't have to worry about fleas, ticks, intestinal parasites or heartworm. This is with the 5 dogs. On the other hand, with the 3 cats, two of whom are white (which supposedly attracts fleas) they live mostly outdoors and have never had flea or any other kind of problems. Go figure.

That would be Trifexis. A one-pill-a-month treatment for all that could ail them...... pricey but worth it, IMHO.