Fleas!

[Frecklylady]

Help! My two dogs have fleas and cannot believe that I'm still not able to rid them of the pesky little biters. I've used Frontline 5 weeks ago, then Advantage a week later and then Frontline Combo a week after that, sprayed the house from top to bottom, washing dog beds daily on a 60 deg wash, hoovering and then hoovering some more. I haven't been bitten but they're still scratching and even saw one on the sitting room rug the other day. I rang the manufacturers of Frontline and they say it will be working but is it really???? It's getting me down.

I use advocate but it's expensive

Frontline is losing it's efficacy. I think resistance to it is building.

I also use advocate and have had no problems. It protects against lungworm, which is spreading and potentially fatal so worth every penny as far as I'm concerned.

AFAIK over-the-counter Frontline and Advantage aren't much use against an existing infestation as they are effective only on adult fleas - in the 24/48 hours they're still living while it kicks in and kills them off in they're laying a few hundred viable eggs in the carpet and you'll get a continuous cycle of re-infestation.

Frontline Combo inhibits the eggs and larvae as well, as do other prescription only products like Advocate and Stronghold. Some of the household sprays do the same (Indorex, RIP Flea, Acclaim) but not things like Bob Martin.

We use eliminall from vets and have found it works. He brought a couple of adult fleas home from daycare but after i'd combed them off we saw no more so it must be working. Think its about 11 for a large dog.

Don't apply anything else to the dogs. The minimum interval for all the products you've mentioned is 4 weeks so you have already overdosed by 3 times. I agree with comments that Frontline is becoming less effective. Advantage contains Imidacloprid, the same flea killing ingredient as Advocate but without the wormer, and kills fleas in about 6 hours, before they have chance to breed. Even frontline kills new fleas within 48 hours which should be soon enough to stop them breeding, they need to feed and develop first.
The problem is that the fleas on the pet are the tip of the iceberg, by the time you realise they are there the house is infested. Fleas have a life cycle stage where they are in a pupa, like a caterpillar in a chrysalis, and at that point nothing short of a nuclear bomb kills them. They can complete the cycle in 3 weeks or sit in the pupa for weeks or months. You need to encourage the pupae to hatch - warmth, humidity, vibration - so central heating on, bowl of water on top of the radiators, vacuum then spray with a treatment containing permethrin and an insect growth regulator like Smethoprene (acclaim, RIP, indorex, Nuvan stay kill all effectively the same) Treat the whole house even if there are areas the pets can't access, and the car.
Understand that there is always a lag phase in getting rid of an infestation because there will still be some pupae hatching, once they jump on to the pets they will be killed off.
In future treat them regularly and avoid the nightmare of trying to clear the house.
The dogs need tape worming if you haven't done that already, fleas carry dipylidium tapeworms.