Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My cats have been infested with fleas for the past year. I have tried everything from boric acid to diatomaceous earth, flea collars and cheap flea drops to bathing them every few days in dawn dish soap and vacuuming twice to three times a day, and NOTHING worked. My friend recommended this shampoo, and at this point one of my cats had developed a severe allergic reaction to the fleas and all I could do was cry because I couldn't help him. He looked - quite frankly - like he had been thrown into a dog pit. When my friend told me about this I immediately bought it. At this point I was willing to try anything and I am SO glad I did. No, it did not cure our flea problem. I didn't expect it to. What it DID do, though, was give my cats some relief from the constant biting and itching. It helped some sores on my allergic cat to heal (very quickly I might add, I was incredibly surprised at how fast they healed) and he was able to grow some of his fur back. After his baths he'd have a few hours of total comfort and then he'd scratch the rest of the day, but he was actually able to rest for a while. And as for the actual effectiveness of the product, hundreds of dead fleas sunk to the bottom of the tub, and hundreds more came off with the flea comb. When I bathed my cats, I turned on some music and scrubbed them for 3 songs, roughly 10-15 minutes depending on the songs playing. Then I would thoroughly comb the cats and rinse the fleas into the bath water since it was full of soap at that time and the living fleas would inevitably drown. After they were combed I would drain the water and rinse them off - thoroughly, I didn't want them to be able ingest enough of the soap to get sick. At first I was startled because I thought one of my cats was bleeding. There was blood dissolving into the water and I thought he had some sores that the soap had irritated and caused to bleed. I later found out this was just the built up flea dirt on his back. Neither of my cats had any adverse reactions to this shampoo, to my relief. Even my sensitive cat reacted well; his red, irritated skin calmed to a slight pink, which was the opposite of what I expected it to do. This is not a preventative and will only kill the fleas that are currently on your animals. With that in mind, when I was finally able to get them some good flea drops, I bathed them with this beforehand and let them dry completely. It combined with the flea drops seems to have done the trick, though my house is still infested and so I will continue vacuuming and treating the house. I am happy to say that the combination of the shampoo and flea drops have left my cat - for the first time in little over a year - flea free. It feels so good to see him laying comfortably without scratching, and even better to comb him and have NO fleas on the comb. Yes, YES I would recommend this to anyone. And I will never go without it ever again.