This is a flea + tick control game changer.

March 6, 2015

Bill, Mary, and I are at the Global Pet Expo, a pet industry trade show in Orlando, Florida.  I’ve been attending trade shows for 24 years now and I have to say, the product line I’m going to tell you about is the most exciting thing I’ve seen in a LONG TIME.

PetEdge, a company we work closely with, is launching a line of pet apparel and gear that uses “Insect Shield” technology.  The Insect Shield company has come up with a way to bind permethrin (a VERY SAFE insect repellant – they use permethrin in lice shampoo for kids) to fibers in such a way that the COLOR will come out of a product before the insect protection wears off.  They can’t say it lasts forever because the EPA can’t actually test “forever”, so they tested it through 70 washings, which is considered the lifetime of a garment, and there was no decrease in the level of protection.

These products are going to be fantastic for us in the South, where the flea season never really ends; it’s ALWAYS flea season around here, right?

PetEdge made t-shirts and vests that keep the fleas + ticks off your pet.  They made dog beds with Insect Shield, so when your pet settles down for a rest, any fleas on any part of his body that comes into contact with the bed will fall off and die.  They made blankets with Insect Shield so when your pet comes inside after playing in the yard, you simply wrap the blanket around him for a minute and the fleas die.

This stuff is affordable and it WORKS!  I did some research about Insect Shield and this company makes work clothes for people who work in insect-infested areas all over the world.  They are protected from mosquitos, ants, chiggers, flies, fleas, ticks, and no-see-ums.  The Army and the Marines use Insect Shield items.

The only bad thing is there may be a little delay is shipping these products because the demand is phenomenal (the people in the PetEdge booth at the show are just blown away by the response), but we placed a really big order and I’ll let you know when the shipment arrives.

We’ve had lots of questions about using these products with cats. Don’t panic!!  These products pose NO RISK to cats at all! Here’s why: the permethrin is bonded so tightly to the fibers (through a patented process) that it does not come off. At all. The items can be laundered 70 times without the product coming off, so no amount of licking or chewing or kneading by a cat will make the permethrin come off in the cat’s mouth.
Liquid permethrin IS dangerous for cats, but this is not now, nor has it ever been liquid. Even if the cat chewed a piece of one of these products and swallowed it, there is such a low dosage of permethrin used that it would not affect the nervous system. (Though you might have to worry about your cat eating a cloth item!)

Thanks for keeping it LOCAL at B&B Pet Stop!

Sally Adams Trufant,
General Manager