Yellow Jackets......Confortis, Flea Medication Warning

I want to add two warnings on this blog-- one is for "bugs" and one is for a medication. The medication is Confortis. It is a new flea medication, a once a month treatment. Two dogs I know of have almost died after using it. The side effects can be VERY serious, even lethal. Chancey, our adopted foster dog, almost died this week. Please be very careful if you use this medication on your dogs. I won't use it. (I now have four cases in Pekes reporting back to me that have used this med.)
Holistic veterinarian, Dr. Blake, on Comfortis
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I received this from a rescue friend. I had one of my dogs have an allergic reaction to something-- his face/snout began to sweel up severely. This can happen because of a bee sting or a reaction to a rabies shot. This is VERY serious.

This is my Scooterbug-- he had his face swell up so badly, and it really scared me. I didn't take a chance and rushed him to the vet. He got a shot there and I waited there to make sure he was okay and didn't need more medical attention. He is my sweet, sweet boy-- a therapy dog to all the fosters who come here. He is silly-- as you can see in the picture-- and such a great dog.

I keep diphenhydramine (generic Benadryl) 25 mg tablets (not capsules) at home for use in an emergency ALL THE TIME. You still want to go to the vet to make sure there is not an allergic reaction that cuts off their air supply.

This is what I received and it's a serious warning about the dangers of bee or yellow jacket stings. It can also happen from a spider bite.

"About two weeks ago, the dogs went out at night, and our nine-year-old female pug, Rocky ("Rockefeller"--she thinks she is one!) went into the onecorner of the fenced-in yard to "do her business." All of a sudden, shebolted back to the deck like a bat out of the bowels of Hell, and pacedaround the deck in a very bad mood. This is a dog who fears nothing, and obviously something was wrong. We checked her for animal bites, and I went back out and didn't see any wild animals.The next morning, she suddenly woke up, acted as though she needed out, and then proceeded to faint--her legs went out, she fell on her side, and shepuked/peed/pooped all at once. After about ten seconds, she was back to being herself (but upset about the incident--unlike a seizure, she neverreally went into an unconscious state). I watched her all day, and everything seemed okay until later in theafternoon. She walked upstairs, and all of a sudden, another incident happened. I grabbed her, and rushed to the vet five minutes down the road. Three hours and over $400 later, nothing could be found to be wrong with her. The vets were puzzled, and suggested that if anything else happened,we should rush her to Dogs and Cats up in Bowie (which is basically $1,000 just to pass through the door). Luckily, I stayed home with her for the next two days (we never left her alone), and nothing happened. Fast forward three days.... We are all in the backyard, and what do I find out where she was, but a nest of (what appears to be) Yellow Jackets in the ground! It now appears that she was stung by a Yellow Jacket, which caused her to rush back to the house. Meanwhile, she started having allergic reactions to the sting, which caused the fainting spells the next day. If we had known,we could have saved several hundred dollars, and the vet could have solved the problem with a simple Benadryl tablet. So if your dog shows the same symptoms, be sure to ask your vet to check tomake sure your dog isn't having an allergic reaction to a bite. "