My cat has fleas!

This is the first time ever that I am dealing with fleas. I saw my cat itching his back and I looked closely and pulled something off. I pulled it off with a tweezers and put it on my counter and sure enough, it jumped! I knew it was a flea..yuck. Anyways, I stuck my cat in warm bath water with flea killing shampoo and bathed him. My cat DOES NOT like water so this was a real challenge. I also heard that laying down salt on the carpet will bring all of the fleas up to the top of the carpet because it dries them out. Is this true?
How do I know that all of the fleas are gone? I brushed him and didn't find anything, but how can I be 100% positive?

I really don't think you can be 100% positive they're gone with cats or dogs. My poodle is white and when I bathe her, you can really see her light pink skin and any black fleas on her. Every time I bathed her in the summer (flea) months I would find anywhere from 10-20 fleas on her. I'd take them off and kill them (just putting them in a small drop of dog shampoo that I squirt on a plate does the trick), then I'd double check everywhere on Gigi to make sure I got them all. When I think I have and start to dry her, sure enough 2-3 more fleas would be on her. Argh! It is really frustrating, right? And even when you do get them off, you take the chance that they will jump back on from going outside again or from even just being in your home.

Every summer we have to apply Advantage to our 3 cats and 1 dog and flea bomb the whole house. I just look at it as a given each summer that we will have to deal with it. Even though all our pets are indoor pets, humans can bring in fleas from working in the yard.

I just experienced the same thing with my two cats and unfortunately a simple bath, even one with flea shampoo, won't do the trick. Most of the time those baths only kill the adult fleas and do nothing for killing the eggs, not to mention the eggs are likely located throughout your house wherever your pets sleep the most often. I brought my cats to the vet and they gave me a 3 month supply of Revolution for each cat that I have to apply, they also suggested vacuuming the entire house regularly, especially where the cats sleep. If your flea problem is especially bad you may need to flea bomb your house or have an exterminator come in. Good luck!

I found out the hard way that getting rid of fleas is a long drawn-out process. The main problem is that the fleas don't only live on the cat. They also live in the cracks along the walls and they also live on other animals nearby. So it takes a combination of techniques to really get rid of the fleas.

One of the first things you should do is to get an anti-flea floor cleaning liquid. Then clean every single place that your cat goes to in the house, which is probably just about everywhere. Then you need to bath your cat with an anti-flea shampoo.

Fleas can survive for a very long time even without food. Some can even survive for up to two years. However they must suck blood to produce eggs. So one way of breaking their breeding cycle is to deny them the blood which they need to produce the eggs. What this amounts to is that cleaning your house with the anti-flea liquid and bathing your cat with the anti-flea shampoo is something that is not just done once. You have to keep on doing it until you do not see any more fleas around. Then you just keep on doing it for, say, just as long again to be very sure. For example, if you took one month to reach a flea-free situation, then keep on using the anti-flea liquid and anti-flea shampoo for one more month.

Here's a picture to give you a better idea what you are up against:


For more information, check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flea

I looked it up, and I found Advantage II Flea Control for Cats seem to be work well for flea control on cats, it has good customer reviews.

It is hard to be sure if the flea is "100%" gone. If they got loose on your carpet or elsewhere in your house, you might want to consider "flea bomb" the entire house.

The problem is not just a question of the fleas being 100% gone. The main problem is that whenever the cat goes outside, there is every possibility of meeting another cat with fleas. Then the cat will bring home some unwanted visitors. Even if the cat doesn't meet another cat with fleas, there may still be fleas lurking in the yard. So it's a neverending battle.