Q&A for How to Apply Advantage to Cats

Advantage in cats is a flea treatment. It's licensed as effective against adult flea infestations, with one application being active for three to four weeks in cats.

Advantage is very safe, and the side effects are mostly those of skin irritation. This is down to the alcohol carrier in which the active ingredient is suspended. This can evaporate quickly from the skin, causing a super-cooling effect, which some cats find irritating. If the cat licks the product while it's still wet, they may salivate heavily, but this usually passes without treatment being needed in most cases.

Advantage II kills adult fleas within 24 hours. The great thing about Advantage II is that it also has an active ingredient that kills flea larvae. This helps stop the next generation of fleas from growing up and causing an itchy nuisance.

Fleas are killed within 24 hours. However, the flea needs to jump onto the cat to die. If there's a heavy flea infestation in the house, you may still see live fleas on the cat for a while, as new individuals jump on to feed. This isn't the product not working; if you could put a label on each individual flea, you'd see they were dead in a day. It's just some of their friends took their place!