Hi everyone,

Today Chelsea’s beloved kitty friend, Lion, had to be put to sleep. His sad tale started with a flea bath using Hartz flea shampoo. Within 24 hours, Lion had a seizure, and by the time we got him to the vet he was in complete hepatic (liver) failure. We tried extreme measures to the tune of over $2000 for the next 3 weeks to save his life, but he started slipping away from us yesterday, and by this morning was dying on his own. Chelsea was and is beside herself. This wasn’t her first loss, but it was the first that she was able to really understand.....if you can call it that.

The point of my post is two fold. NEVER NEVER use HARTZ flea products on cats! According to my vet, this is NOT an isolated case and lots of kitties have lost their lives to this product. Why it is still on the market is beyond me. The warning label on the back of the bottle does not even mention the possibility of what happened to Lion. It simply states a general warning about the "use of any pesticide product on animals" and to "seek veterinary care if syptoms persist", but it doesn’t even say what those "symptoms" are.

The second part of my post is the stress dose the Endo decided she needed today. Greif is such a strong emotion. It had not occurred to me that she would need to be stress dosed for this until I saw her curled up on the couch, lethargic and not wanting to do anything but cry.  I called the Endo immediately, and he said to absolutely stress dose her.  She is still very sad, but not lethargic.

We miss our Lion.