Allergies - Dogs (and cats) have them too!

A couple of days ago I found myself at Yahoo answers and saw the following question:

"Could natural flea remedy poison my dog?

My dog recently got fleas so by boyfriend got a natural flea remedy called "only natural pet" the all in one flea remedy. it contains diatomaceous earth, sage, eucalyptus, yellow rock root, fennel seed, and rosemary leaf. She has been on this powder cure for about 2-3 days and now is having diarrhea, drools a lot, and had an accident when she was picked up yesterday. She's never had these problems previously, could it be the powder? If not what would you recommend? She is 3 years old, 50 lb, and a chow- german sheppard mix from a rescue.

Additional Details
I have called a vet and she will be going in later today however I'm just a worried pet owner. I have bathed her to get all of the powder off of her and I got advantage. The previous vet I had said it works the best .


Also, the bottle says it is vet approved. I know that could just be bull but just wanted to put it out there if it was in some way helpful."

Since I've had experience with pet allergies, I had to answer her:

Every one of us is allergic to different things - your dog is no different!

He absolutely could be having a reaction to ingesting the flea remedy. I believe strongly in natural remedies and shy away from the chemicals - whether for me or for my dogs.

Once, when my dogs got into fleas, I took them to the vet and he used Frontline. Two of my dogs were fine with it, but one itched and scratched until he bled for a full month until the chemicals worked their way out of his system. I would never consider using a chemical flea killer on him again.

Any time ANY medication - natural or pharmaceutical - causes a bad reaction, stop it immediately. I listened to the vet once and kept up with Rymadyl - and lost my best friend to it. Had I listened to my brain and stopped the medication when the dog couldn't stop throwing up, he might be alive today.

I followed up with an invitation for the asker to tell her story here...

After writing the answer I didn't think much about it until I got the notice that my answer was "the chosen one." I also got a note saying she'd be happy to share her experience with all of us, so this post is for her to answer.

If YOU have had similar experiences, please do jump in and tell your story too!

Here's to healthy, happy pets.

Marte