Okay, I give up! Can someone please tell me how to use Dawn to kill fleas on my cats?

Use a small amount in your hands as if it was normal cat shampoo - you don't need a lot. You do need to wet down the cat first and then put the Dawn on the coat and let it sit for a minute or so. Then rinse the cat in warm water.

Best to be using a flea comb after to get the dead fleas and any "knocked out" fleas.

Then in a day or two apply Frontline or Advantage to the cat. You need to be getting a professional to clean the house to kill all the fleas. They are in the carpets, etc and re-infecting your cats.

With giving Frontline you really don't need to give them a bath. But people misunderstand how it works. It is not immediate death to fleas. It will kill fleas within 24-48 hours during the first two week after application, and up to 72 hours the last two weeks. Frontline Plus has a second ingredient that prevents eggs from hatching.

Capstar is immediate death to fleas, but no long term protection. The key is eliminating fleas from their home, and that can be a challenge. Regular vacuuming is the best approach, and fleas do not survive a trip through an upright.

If there are fleas still around in the home they will jump on the cat, die, but there may be more that hatch in the home. That is why Frontline typically has three applications, as it can take three months to break the flea-egg cycle.

OK, fleas 101. I wrote this for kittens, but will work just the same on adults.

Fill a sink (kitchen) with warm water. Hold the kitten in the water up to the neck for 3 minutes. You will need a flea comb and tweezers to catch any fleeing fleas who attempt to escape drowning by crawling up onto the kitten's head. After 3 minutes put some Dawn Detergent (yes, the blue stuff) on your hands and lather it up. Do NOT get the detergent on the kitten's face. Keep watching the kitten's head for fleas. Soak the kitten in the bath water again for 3 minutes. Then, rinse completely in warm water. As you are rinsing, there should be a lot of dead fleas and flea dirt visible. If you can't comb it out, tweeze it out. Time-consuming, but it works.

Then towel dry the baby. If you are doing this in the winter make sure you heat the room to at least 80 degrees and have a heating pad available for damp cats. Then put them all in a clean, non-flea infested place.

Once the felines have been bathed, apply Advantage or whatever your vet recommends but ONLY if your vet says it's ok. Do NOT put any flea medication on a kitten without vet approval.

I do this for EVERY SINGLE new foster cat/kitten who comes into my house. Haven't had fleas in 15 years and I have 2-15 fosters at any given time, plus my own 5 cats!

The real problem is the fleas and dirt in your house. Once all the cats have been treated, you need to vacuum/scrub/wash and dry in hot water and high heat all surfaces, furniture, bedding, clothing, etc. that your cats have touched. You will need to do this EVERY DAY for AT LEAST 8 days. Also either burn the vacuum bag or wash out the canister every day. Yes, a gigantic pain in the butt, but it works, is easy, and non-toxic!

I think maybe you just need to do the cleaning more often. The life-cycle of a flea is about 7 days, so if you clean EVERY surface EVERY day for at LEAST TEN days you should be flea free, assuming your cats have been given Advantage or something with long-term flea-killing power.

Good luck...and fleas suck...literally and in every other way possible.

Soap does not kill fleas, it just stuns them. There is no need to bathe cats for fleas. Just use Frontline and it will kill all fleas on the animal within 3 days. With totally inside cats one Frontline treatment should last quite a long time.

Unless your cats are accustomed to you bathing them be aware of the fact that you could be seriously clawed if you attempt to give your kitties a bath. I bathed two adult cats in warm water in the bath tub with dawn and still have the scars to prove it. Didn't really get rid of the fleas either. My vet said dawn is hard on their skin too.

You can set up flea traps in your home at night. Take a 8-9 inch pie pan, a votive style candle in a glass container, set the candle in the center of the pie pan, put water and dawn dish soap (about the mixture as if you were going to wash dishes) in the pie pan around the candle about an inch deep, keeping the candle sitting in the pie pan and sudsy water, light the candle and set it in the middle of the floor before you go to bed, you will wake up in the morning and find lots of dead floating fleas. who were attracted to the candle.

You just give them a bath. it doesn't matter if it's Dawn or whatever any soap will work. But if you've got carpet you have fleas, eggs hatch every few days. You have to take care of that too

Use Dawn just like you would regular cat shampoo. Squirt some in your hands and lather up, best to let it sit a few minutes, will start killing them right away.