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This week it was time to buy more Frontline medication. I like to buy in bulk, as long as I can be assured that the meds won’t expire before the year is out. I selected 12-month packs of feline and canine Frontline and put them in my virtual shopping cart, and then was amazed at the price. $300? That seems like way more than I’ve ever paid for it before.
When my husband came home, I asked him about it. Did he remember their flea/tick medicine costing this much, because I didn’t. He said no, although it was maybe $200 or so in the past, he didn’t think it was so expensive either.
We started looking to see if there were ways I could scrimp on the price. I debated whether or not we needed a medication that killed flea larvae and eggs as well as fleas and ticks. After all, if I’m punctual in applying medicine that kills fleas, then they shouldn’t have any live ones on them long enough to lay eggs.
While I was debating this, my husband researched another solution. My engineer bounded up to me, excited to “try science.” He’d read of a money-saving tip online. First thing’s first, he said: there’s no difference in the formula between the types of flea/ticket medication marketed for cats vs. dogs. The difference is the amount in the package, just like how there are different sized packages sold for dogs of various sizes.
My husband read about people buying larger packages of Frontline, meant for bigger dogs. They then bought syringes, and just doled out smaller amounts of that Frontline onto their pets, including cats. They didn’t just pick random amounts; each individual packet of flea/tick medication has a noted mL amount. Using a marked syringe, you can extract that amount from a bigger packet of Frontline and apply it to your pet. Syringes are only used once, but given that each one is only about 15 cents, they’re much cheaper than the proper marketed amount of Frontline.
I admit I’m a bit skeptical about this whole thing. If there’s Frontline left in the packet after putting it on our pets, how do we properly preserve that? Can we even do so? Is this really going to work? I don’t want to take any risks with my pet’s health, or with getting fleas in my house.
Jon swears this isn’t some crazy theory on the Internet; people really do it and report success. The key is to not just buy the largest amounts of Frontline available. We bought packets just one size up from Chihiro: enough for her each month, and to have just the right amount left over for both of the cats, so we don’t have to store extra.
He said he read that many shelters do it as well, because they often don’t have enough money to buy individual Frontline for each of their residents. I can believe that. We’ll just have to see how this plan works out, but I’m feeling confident about it.
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*(The above image by randysonofrobert is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)