During fly season, you must repopulate fly infested areas every 30 days with a new supply of recruits that will be mailed directly to you from Spalding Fly Predators. From the website, read all recommendations carefully on how to handle your fresh supply of these little exterminators. You want them to be alive and hungry when you release them!

The author has successfully used and recommends Spalding Laboratories (http://www.spalding-labs.com/Default.aspx) for their excellent customer support. And it works!

Mix citronella oil with Bag Balm— this ointment is an all purpose remedy good to keep on hand for skin irritations and abrasions. You may need to soften the ointment to evenly mix in the oil. You can also add these essential oils*: cedar and neem oil. Use 2 to 4 parts oil to 8 parts ointment. Experiment and see what works best for whatever is bugging your dog. Generously coat the ears. Vaseline can be used as a substitute for Bag Balm (available at feed stores or on-line retailers).

OR purchase a cedar-oil based gel (made for horses but safe for dogs). A popular product made in Germany — “Fliegenschutz” (meaning fly protection) is sold here under the name Pharmaka Deo Gel Fly Repellent — same famous CLAC formula containing: citronella oil, clove oil, thyme oil, cedar oil, geranium oil. You can find several online retailers with the help of Google. Another cedar based product — made for horses but safe for dogs — is POCO fly gel. Commonly found in feed stores.

If the ears are severely affected, apply liquid bandage (available at drug stores), to the affected edges and tip of the ear flap beforehand, and then one of the above remedies.

For flies, try fly paper. I have flea traps that are like fly paper except they are lighted and work mainly at night for a small area. My flea traps have caught fleas, flies, spiders, and crickets. (Basically anything that is attracted by the light.) I give my dog Brewers Yeast with garlic for fleas. The Brewers Yeast is for the coat and insects plain don’t like garlic. I also take garlic capsules 500MG 1 or 2 times daily depending on the infestation. The fleas may land on me but don’t bite. It is worth a try for flies. Can you bring the water indoors? You are lucky not to have mosquitos. Also bug zappers are good for flies or any flying insect but works only at night.
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Obviously it is important to control the fleas or whatever from being tracked in by the pet. I use Capstar to kill fleas and Program to prevent fleas from breeding. If you use Sentinel for Heartworm, you don’t need Program; but your pet requires a heartworm test before your vet will sell you Sentinel.

Insecticides also cause an adverse reaction to some humans, but the industry and even doctors won’t admit it. I had a bad flea infestation 8 years ago. Since insecticides are out of the question, I did quite a bit of searching to find products that had no insectides. Now I have a fairly good control on the fleas and use the flea traps mainly as a census and to catch anything else that is attracted by them. For Pest Control without insecticides please see:
http://www.shopwhiteman.us/PestControl.html

Thank you.