attention @ everyone who cares about animals!!!!!!!!!!
tl;dr: do NOT buy this brand of flea medicine. always do research before buying any kind of medication for your animals.
my boyfriend bought this at petsmart for our cat and when we put it on her, she started licking it bc i guess i accidentally placed it too low and he got worried so we’ve been on google to find out if it’ll harm her. we found some scary stuff.
it doesn’t happen to every cat that this product is used on, but there are reports of this product seriously hurting cats. it burns their skin and can be very painful. the screenshots above are reviews from amazon for the one in the blue box. the one we used is the one in the purple box.
some cats had reactions right away while others took a few hours. we put this on our cat about an hour ago (washed it off of her soon after) and she seems fine but we’re so worried about what could happen. even if nothing happens, this is a chance we never would had taken if we’d known.
ALWAYS RESEARCH BEFOREHAND. i can’t believe petsmart has this on their shelves after everything people have said about it. please spread the word by sharing this post! protect ur pets. a simple google search could have stopped all these cats from getting hurt.
Don’t buy anything but front line. I learned this lesson once long ago.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/pets/sentry.html
Looking at the 1-star average reviews here? The dog version doesn’t sound any safer, either. Lots of reports of neurological symptoms and other really bad reactions to the Sentry spot on products.
Don’t buy anything Hartz either…unless you want a dead cat/dog! 😦
Signal boost this!!
It gave my dog seizures
got concerned and i figured i’d might as well use my college degree for something so
active ingredient in sentry is etofenprox, an insecticide which is a derivative of pyrethroid. basically what this type of insecticide does is it disrupts the functioning of the insect’s nervous system, BUT it does this in a different manner from the insecticides found in frontline or advantage (both of which are definitely safe and effective). frontline (which i actually did research on) uses fipronil instead, which targets part of the nervous system that’s more specific to insects than mammals. etofenprox targets part of the nervous system that’s very important in mammals.
which shouldn’t be a big deal. at the concentrations we see in commercial use, etofenprox shouldn’t be strong enough to affect mammals.except there’s also…
right on the product label (for the actual pesticide, not the flea medicine):
Harmful if swallowed. Avoid contact with skin, eyes or clothing. Wash thoroughly after handling
and before eating or smoking. Remove contaminated clothing and wash before reuse. Avoid
contamination of food, feed or water.and then you come across this little aside on wikipedia page for pyrethroid:
Earlier studies suggested that most vertebrates have sufficient enzymes for rapid breakdown of pyrethroids, except for cats. Pyrethroids are highly toxic to cats because they do not have glucuronidase, which participates in hepatic detoxifying metabolism pathways.[13]
(for the non-science-inclined: cats don’t have the enzyme that helps the liver break down pyrethroids. hence, neurological symptoms. and yes i know wiki isn’t a good reference blah blah blah but also hey someone at least copy and pasted some real science there!)
other things worth note: this study suggests it might not even work against ticks; it’s not effective against fleas after 21 days; it might not work for dogs at all
this WHO report has a bunch of science-ese near the bottom that boils down to etofenprox being at least an irritant to the skin for rats, mice, rabbits, and dogs. also carcinogenic to rats and mice, and caused liver dysfunction in dogs and rats. (worth noting these types of studies tend to use ridiculously high levels of whatever is being studied)
anyway, rats and mice are used in scientific research because they’re a good base mammal. if something affects rats, there’s a good chance it will have similar effects in other animals (particularly humans). so all of the skin toxicity and irritation and everything that WHO study showed?
¯_(ツ)_/¯
of course, any insecticide has a chance of causing skin irritation when applied to your pet. just, you know, not like THIS. idk, take from that what ya’ll will, if anyone even made it through that all. XD
Fibromyangela 