Killing Fleas? A moral dilemma

[roxyruby]

I am a mass murderer, that's right.

Lately I have killed hundreds of fleas.

Since I am doing dog minding, I have to get rid of the fleas or else people may complain about me or I lose my job etc.

No-one wants fleas on their dog.

And I felt worried and sorry for the dog seeing how frustrated they get, biting them self all the time, irritated by the fleas.

Mainly I would wash the dog in flea shampoo and I could see the dead fleas coming to the surface or under the water.

Is there a cruelty free way to keep fleas off dogs? Those drops that you put on their skin, does that kill them?

I feel so guilty about it and I know it is so sad what has happened.

[butterflyeffect]

Have you tried using Anti-flear collars? That would prevent fleas in the first place.

[curiouslyrandom]

The drops, so far as I know, repel ticks and fleas. In the case of ticks, they still bite, but then the animal doesn't taste right to them and they don't draw blood.

The downside of drops is that they tend to irritate the animal's skin. I know my dog hates it when I put the stuff on her.

[Medea33]

I don't mind mass-murdering fleas. I've yet to figure out their ecological niche and, really, they're a big nuisance.

The collars repel fleas, the drops inhibit their ability to breed. So, bug birth control.

[curiouslyrandom]

I think they exist pretty much to spread disease, but little else. Maybe to provide food for other critters that eat them, too.

I wonder where Europe would have been without the great plagues? Did the mighty flea set development back, or advance it by culling thousands of humans so the survivors could excel once the plague had passed?

[votoshka]

I don't kill most bugs. If I find a bug in my house, or a spider, I usually take it outside!

BUT... I kill fleas (well I did when my pets had them!). I managed to completely eradicate our flea problem, and my pets haven't had fleas since 2004 (and I have plenty of pets!) However, this involved, initially, mass murder. Fortunately, no more murder has been necessary.

What I did was I used Advantage on all the animals to get rid of the fleas that were on them, and then before I moved into my new house, I flea bombed it (easier to do it than when pets are in the house... cause you can't have pets in when you do it). Sadly, this probably killed a number of bugs. BUT... no fleas now!

AND I have NOT had to use any anti-flea products since then! No flea collars, no flea powder, and no Advantage.

I also kill ants when they get in my kitchen I feel bad...but I haven't figured out what else to do when, for example, my kids spill honey in the cutlery drawer and it gets a major ant infestation...

[Medea33]

Doh. I forgot to think about fleas as a food source. Still, a lot of critters are prey, so they remain on my short list as superfluous nuisances.

Now I have to go chew on (heh) whether spreading disease is a useful niche. Useful, I mean, in the elegant, seemingly purposeful way some things in nature are designed.

Up until now, the sole use I could see for fleas was in providing a subject for a favorite poem by Donne.

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Etc.

[roxyruby]

Thank you. Yes I think I will try Frontline Plus. Frontline advantage. Whatever it's called.

I am sorry to all the flees I killed. Their consciousness couldn't help being born into their being.

[Lakshyayidhi Lakshmihi]

Originally Posted by roxyruby

Thank you. Yes I think I will try Frontline Plus. Frontline advantage. Whatever it's called.

I am sorry to all the flees I killed. Their consciousness couldn't help being born into their being.

Consider that their consciousness experienced death as a necessary part of the cycle of death and rebirth. At least they have an opportunity to become something else, now. A flea's life isn't so great.

[Daffy Duck]

Roxy, do you really want to feel *guilty* about killing fleas? I just don't see how this belief empowers you to live a better life. Do you know how many things you KILL every time you take a shower? If you feel guilty about killing things - you have a lot to feel guilty about!

Just something to think about. And surely, if a soul decides to become a flea, they know they're going to die. Fleas generally don't live more than 3 or 4 months at most.

[Mounds]

I'd go on ahead and draw a line in the sand on what I'm going to kill and what I'm simply not. I won't kill anything that doesn't cause me grief. If I find a spider, I always let it outside. I honestly feel like they're misunderstood. Fleas, lice and misquitoes are only in existence to drink my blood so I have no problem killing them.
Remember what Daffy said as well. When you take a shower, you kill millions of bacteria. Same with when you clean your house. Drive a car? Murder thousands of insects. Eat vegetables? Your contributing to the deaths of insects with pesticides. Eat bread? Some bugs couldn't escape the processing and got ground in. It is what it is!

-Tim

[roxyruby]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

Roxy, do you really want to feel *guilty* about killing fleas? I just don't see how this belief empowers you to live a better life. Do you know how many things you KILL every time you take a shower? If you feel guilty about killing things - you have a lot to feel guilty about!

Just something to think about. And surely, if a soul decides to become a flea, they know they're going to die. Fleas generally don't live more than 3 or 4 months at most.

You're right long-term guilt is not good for you.

How can a soul decide? Do souls exist? Where are the evidence?

I never decided to become a human. I didn't even exist to be able to make a decision before I was a human.

So I don't think the consciousness of fleas "decides" to be a flea. Just like I didn't decide to be human.

They (their consciousness) just finds them self inside the being they find them-self in.

[Lakshyayidhi Lakshmihi]

Originally Posted by roxyruby

I never decided to become a human. I didn't even exist to be able to make a decision before I was a human.

Maybe you just don't remember yet. Birth is a traumatic experience.

[roxyruby]

Originally Posted by Lakshyayidhi Lakshmihi

Maybe you just don't remember yet. Birth is a traumatic experience.

Do you remember making a decision before you were born?

[Lakshyayidhi Lakshmihi]

Originally Posted by roxyruby

Do you remember making a decision before you were born?

Yes, but not me that is the collection of memories and beliefs that make up the self that interacts with the world of forms in this incarnation. Many incarnations.

[votoshka]

Originally Posted by Mounds

I'd go on ahead and draw a line in the sand on what I'm going to kill and what I'm simply not. I won't kill anything that doesn't cause me grief. If I find a spider, I always let it outside. I honestly feel like they're misunderstood. Fleas, lice and misquitoes are only in existence to drink my blood so I have no problem killing them.
Remember what Daffy said as well. When you take a shower, you kill millions of bacteria. Same with when you clean your house. Drive a car? Murder thousands of insects. Eat vegetables? Your contributing to the deaths of insects with pesticides. Eat bread? Some bugs couldn't escape the processing and got ground in. It is what it is!

-Tim

Yeah... good point... theh other day I drove my car when it was particularly "buggy" outside, and the bugs hitting the windscreen made it sound as if it was raining (or hailing they were so noisy), my car was COVERED in dead bugs...

Another time I was driving and it had been raining and there were FROGS everywhere on the road, and I love frogs! I tried to avoid them...but in the end, I just had not look too much at the frogs, cause I'd end up having a car accident trying to avoid all the wee frogs

And I'm sure when I vacuum my house, or clean up or whatever, I'm also going to kill bugs.

When I walk along, I'm pretty sure I walk on ants, and other bugs sometimes. At the moment there are sooo many snails in my garden, and when I go out at night, I dread the sound of a "crunch" that I make when I stand on one!

It'd be nice to avoid all these deaths! But it's just not possible... I guess the difference is that you're deliberately killing fleas, as you made the decision to remove fleas from animals... but it all amounts to the same thing!

Oh yeah, and if a mosquito bites me, I whack it

[elucidate]

Originally Posted by curiouslyrandom

I think they exist pretty much to spread disease, but little else. Maybe to provide food for other critters that eat them, too.

I wonder where Europe would have been without the great plagues? Did the mighty flea set development back, or advance it by culling thousands of humans so the survivors could excel once the plague had passed?

I was just wondering this as I started reading your post!

Nature has it's own built in ability to, as you say, 'cull' the population. I've often thought it was funny that tornados and tidal waves and other weather 'catastrophes' as we percieve them, happened in places with really over-crowded concentrations of people.

I don't think fleas are the only example of this. Can somebody please tell me what the frig flies are for? I mean, they are literally carriers of filth...from one place to another, they drop off and collect more rubbish and crap that we create. That's what they do.

I find it interesting to take a step back and look at the dynamics built into nature that would test our immune systems in such an insidious way.

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by roxyruby

They (their consciousness) just finds them self inside the being they find them-self in.

Does it? Does a fly even have consciousness? How do you know?

There's a popular spiritual idea that we choose our human life before we go into human form. The idea is that we meet with our guides and decide who to be born as and what family to grow up with. Often, families will stick with together for many life-times, effectively becoming soul-mates. They help each other grow in many different ways.

I don't know if it's the truth or not, but I think it's an interesting theory and a neat idea. Of course, the theory that killing fleas is bad or gives you some kind of negative karmic debt is just an idea too.

[elucidate]

All I know is, if you spend your whole life worrying about every little thing you killed, then that's a lot of time, wasted worrying about what is inevitable, and what's the point of that? It ain't gonna help the bugs

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by elucidate

I don't think fleas are the only example of this. Can somebody please tell me what the frig flies are for? I mean, they are literally carriers of filth...from one place to another, they drop off and collect more rubbish and crap that we create. That's what they do.

Flies are actually pretty neat! They're considered to be a more evolved type of insect, more so than say grasshoppers and cockroaches. It has to do with their stages of development. Basically, a fly starts out looking like a worm. So does a beetle, butterfly/moth, wasp, bee or ant. Eventually, they go through a true metamorphosis. At that point, they look completely different (obviously).
Grasshoppers, cockroaches, plant bugs, mantids, nearly everything else, starts out looking similair to it's adult form. They molt on the go and if I remember correctly, they don't have wings until the adult stage.
Anyways, flies fill a number of roles in ecosystems, usually a janitorial role. Lay eggs on corpse or dung, eggs hatch, maggots consume and you get more flies.

[elucidate]

Originally Posted by Mounds

Flies are actually pretty neat! They're considered to be a more evolved type of insect, more so than say grasshoppers and cockroaches. It has to do with their stages of development. Basically, a fly starts out looking like a worm. So does a beetle, butterfly/moth, wasp, bee or ant. Eventually, they go through a true metamorphosis. At that point, they look completely different (obviously).
Grasshoppers, cockroaches, plant bugs, mantids, nearly everything else, starts out looking similair to it's adult form. They molt on the go and if I remember correctly, they don't have wings until the adult stage.
Anyways, flies fill a number of roles in ecosystems, usually a janitorial role. Lay eggs on corpse or dung, eggs hatch, maggots consume and you get more flies.

That's really just one function you mentioned though. They live to breed...and that's about it! Apart from this, they break down crap by delivering particles from one pile to somewhere else...which I can sorta see the necessity of this, even though most crap will eventually break down without them!

Maybe their evolution is evolved in the insect realm, I just don't see what purpose other than continuing their species which does nothing but collect and deliver filth, is?

[Mynder]

If there were no flies, if there were no maggots, no bacteria who fed off the stuff the maggots leave behind, etc.

...there would be no corpse decomposition and decay. There would be no cycle of living, dying, decomposing, fertilizing, birth, living, dying,...

That said, if they keep flying around my head and sitting on my computer screens, landing on my arms and being an overall nuisance and distracting me from work, I'm gonna fertilize my wastebasket with their corpses and allow them to decompose in the trash can.

[goldberg]

Originally Posted by roxyruby

I am a mass murderer, that's right.

Lately I have killed hundreds of fleas.

Since I am doing dog minding, I have to get rid of the fleas or else people may complain about me or I lose my job etc.

No-one wants fleas on their dog.

And I felt worried and sorry for the dog seeing how frustrated they get, biting them self all the time, irritated by the fleas.

Mainly I would wash the dog in flea shampoo and I could see the dead fleas coming to the surface or under the water.

Is there a cruelty free way to keep fleas off dogs? Those drops that you put on their skin, does that kill them?

I feel so guilty about it and I know it is so sad what has happened.

If your bar is so low for what you consider to be murder then forget about fleas you are killing millions of organism every day by your very existence. What about all those animals and insects, and bacteria in the fields, where your food comes from? It may be indirect but ultimately their death is providing for your existence. Your own body kills millions of virii and bacteria every day, because they are trying to kill you.

I think you need to raise your bar.

[Mounds]

Originally Posted by elucidate

That's really just one function you mentioned though. They live to breed...and that's about it! Apart from this, they break down crap by delivering particles from one pile to somewhere else...which I can sorta see the necessity of this, even though most crap will eventually break down without them!

Maybe their evolution is evolved in the insect realm, I just don't see what purpose other than continuing their species which does nothing but collect and deliver filth, is?

You'd notice pretty quickly if they all disappeared someday. Plenty of other species would have a lot less food, corpses would hang around longer (possibly much longer), certain plants wouldn't get pollinated and eventually go extinct... stuff like that.
I love it that you said they live to breed and that's it! I have a theory that every species (including people) live for that very reason - simply to exist.

-Tim

[GhostGoat]

Aaaargh, fleas are the most annoying pests in the world. Kill'em, I say! Kill'em all! That's one reason I could never be a Buddhist, I ain't sparin' the life of no flea.

Frontline Advantage is pretty effective, I've used it on my dogs for almost 20 years now. Its expensive, but its worth it - flea collars are basically useless.

However there is a strain of flea that has built up an immunity to Frontline, and has spread throughout the US. My dog got these kind of fleas about a year ago, and I had a heck of a time getting rid of them.

I eventually found something called Comfortis, which got rid of all of his fleas. Like Frontline, you can only get it from a vet. Its about the same price as Frontline, but far more effective. Good luck!

[Indiana]

I think you'll find if you go to the Frontline site (or the Advantage site) that they both proudly claim their products kill up to 100 percent of fleas on a dog within 12 hours of application. And then continues to kill them for up to 8 weeks!

Program is a treatment that stops fleas from producing larvae but does not kill them. However this treatment has been known to have negative effects on pets, so it needs to be used with care.

Here's an article on natural ways to repel fleas. They don't sound very effective to me, and they're a great deal of trouble to go to for a solution that may also harm your pet as much as a store-bought flea-killing treatment will.

How to Get Rid of Fleas Naturally - wikiHow

Frankly, fleas have never done anything for me, they give my dog a very uncomfortable type of dermatitis, and they're disease vectors, so I have no problem napalming the dirty little suckers.

[elucidate]

Originally Posted by Mynder

If there were no flies, if there were no maggots, no bacteria who fed off the stuff the maggots leave behind, etc.

...there would be no corpse decomposition and decay. There would be no cycle of living, dying, decomposing, fertilizing, birth, living, dying,...

That said, if they keep flying around my head and sitting on my computer screens, landing on my arms and being an overall nuisance and distracting me from work, I'm gonna fertilize my wastebasket with their corpses and allow them to decompose in the trash can.

I think the body would still decompose...it might just take longer. The worms would still have a go...

[elucidate]

Originally Posted by Mounds

You'd notice pretty quickly if they all disappeared someday. Plenty of other species would have a lot less food, corpses would hang around longer (possibly much longer), certain plants wouldn't get pollinated and eventually go extinct... stuff like that.
I love it that you said they live to breed and that's it! I have a theory that every species (including people) live for that very reason - simply to exist.

-Tim

Well, true! I guess my feelings of annoyance stop me from thinking realistically about them. I often wonder how it is that flies became synonymous with Beelzebub?

It is funny how we are all pretty much here out of some unstoppable compulsion to just exist. Life must be THAT good that everything wants to be here.

[Mounds]

It would eventually. Put a piece of meat in a jar and watch it for a few months. Bacteria break it down fairly slowly.

One thing I could never believe was how quickly flesh breaks down in water (process of maceration). I had a passing interest in skulls and articulating mammal skeletons. The most attractive process for me was using cold-water maceration, which involved skinning the dead animal and throwing it into a jar of cold water. After a month or so, all it is is a skeleton.
Dermestid beetles are more commonly used in that hobby. People will get massive colonies going and throw in anything, from rodents to whales (piece by piece at that size). The beetles strip it clean within days.

-Tim

[elucidate]

To most people that would sound awfully morbid, but I actually find that sort of thing fascinating...though I haven't gone to the same extent as you to experiment with it.

I do want to buy a science lab microscope and start studying bacteria again. I work in a lab, and the scientists here have said they will give me some petri dishes and sample bottles to collect specimens...YAY

Originally Posted by Mounds

It would eventually. Put a piece of meat in a jar and watch it for a few months. Bacteria break it down fairly slowly.

One thing I could never believe was how quickly flesh breaks down in water (process of maceration). I had a passing interest in skulls and articulating mammal skeletons. The most attractive process for me was using cold-water maceration, which involved skinning the dead animal and throwing it into a jar of cold water. After a month or so, all it is is a skeleton.
Dermestid beetles are more commonly used in that hobby. People will get massive colonies going and throw in anything, from rodents to whales (piece by piece at that size). The beetles strip it clean within days.

-Tim