As with most things on the farm and in life, we like to try new things. When it comes to “stuff” for our beloved pets, we are always willing to try new products to help them out. We found a recipe for flea repellent oil using essential oils. We already use the DIY flea powder recipe, but we decided to give the flea repellent oil a try also.

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This is a very quick, simple recipe for making your own flea repellent oil using essential oils. We already use most of these ingredients regularly so we already had them on hand. If you need to buy some of the essential oils, we recommend StarWest as always. We have always been very happy with the StarWest essential oil products and have bought other herbal needs from them as well.

You will need:
5 drops Rosemary Essential Oil
5 drops Peppermint Essential Oil
5 drops Eucalyptus Essential Oil
1 oz. Almond Oil or the carrier oil of your choice
Small dropper, or sprayer bottle

We went with a dropper bottle to make it easier to apply and control when putting the oil directly onto the pet. A sprayer bottle likely will do well if you want to spray the pets’ bedding and blankets or even the jackets they wear. Your pets may not wear “clothes” but some of ours do.

Again, this is a very quick, simple process. Pretty much you just mix and shake. The general rule is 5 drops of each essential oil to 1 oz. carrier oil. We used almond oil as it is good for the skin and soakes into the skin more quickly than some of the other carrier oils.

Fill your bottle most of the way full with the almond oil. Remember to leave enough room for the essential oils. Note, it may be best to either use a funnel or have another hand for this. A large mess was made on the first try here.

Add 5 drops of each essential oil.

And there you are, you have made your own flea repellent oil for your pet. The almond oil, again, is good for the skin. The essential oils repel flea and smell good.

As with all DIY projects, make sure to label your bottle to be sure not to mix it up with similar DIY bottles.

Do not let the dog lick or drink this oil mix. One of our dogs liked the smell and was keen to give it a drink. Not sure how bad that would be.  At the very least, the oil would give your dog intestinal issues. But if taken internally the essential oils could poison your dog. So no drinking the oil mix.

To use:
With the dropper, apply the oil directly to the dogs’ skin. It is best to separate the dogs’ hair so you can get the dropper right down to the skin and avoid getting the oil into the hair. There seems to be a learning curve when it comes to controlling dogs’ hair. If you have a dog with long hair, you may need help.

If your pet suspects you are up to something, you may need 3 people. One to hold the dog, one to control the long hair, and one to apply the oil with the dropper.
Two of our dogs did not mind the oil so it was a quick, non-traumatic application. The third was a bit more complicated.

It also depends on the size of your dog as to how much oil to apply at one time. We suggest you start small and work your way up to what works for your specific dog.

For our small chihuahua, we used one dropper-full and that seems to be working well for her. As she has short hair, it was nothing to pet her and apply the oil. She did not even seem to notice we did it.

For the larger dog, we used 3 droppers full of oil.  Again, the dog slept while we petted her and put the oil on. She did not seem to notice at all.

The small long hair dog was a different story. He had a chronic skin infection when he came to us so he has been treated with everything for a long time. This fellow knows all the tricks we use to treat him and he has skills when it comes to getting out of treatment.
We had to have one to hold and one to apply the oil. We separated his long hair and used the dropper to drip the oil down to his skin. We used 2 droppers of oil on him. All was going well until we put him down. He then shook like a violent storm and got oil all over his hair. It seems we should have held him a bit longer to let the oil spread through the hair follicles and absorb into the skin. This was not, however, the disaster you might have expected. Yes, the dog’s hair was oily but within a couple of hours, the almond oil had absorbed into the dogs’ skin and hair. This left the dog non-sticky and with a very nice, soft, shiny coat. So overall, it worked well. We just may need to think of a longer hold time before releasing a dog with long hair next time.

Try petting your dog and putting the oil on first. See how the dog reacts before you use any restraint. The oil does not seem to offend the dogs’ nose like so many flea treatments do. So the dog may not even realize he has been treated. That is a great thing for both you and the dog. No more traumatizing the both of you, fighting to get the flea meds on your beloved.

Of course, you will need to re-apply this oil after baths, rain, or swims. So far, we have re-applied about once a week or so.  It is summer and we like to go with preventative measures rather than have to beat back an infestation.  We do live in the country so buggy pests are common.

We are not sure if this can be used on cats, so far we have not found any research that says it is safe for cats. So we do not recommend use on cats.

As a side note, the oil that we got on us from the long-haired dog, made our hands very soft and gave off a pleasant scent for some time.

We hope you will try this DIY flea repellent oil on your dog and see great results.
Thank you for visiting and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.