AITAH for arguing with my mother about flea medicine?
I'm going to point it out that my cat has a bad allergy to fleas. Will itch till he bleeds, loses fur and has scab like issues. So this is a big issue for me. He is also recently diagnosed as diabetic and the vet said his body is trying to focus more on that than his dermatitis.
But I have 2 dogs and she has a dog. A dog who I feel also has some sort of allergy to fleas as she lost a good bit of fur by her butt and tail area and has been the worst hit with fleas. We've tried OTC flea meds with nothing working. I've tried weekly baths and the fleas were back within hours. I've begged to flea bomb the house after moving back 2 years ago with push back and not being able to do it. I havr vacuumed daily and tried to shampoo the carpet monthly to try to make sure they're all gone. Nothing works.
I plan to take my 2 dogs to the vet and get them on perscription flea meds like my cat is on. And I have been pushing my mother to to the same with her dog as I want my cat to not deal with this again with flea season coming soon. She argued. I said if she doesn't want to take her dog to get vet flea meds, then she needs to find a good OTC flea medicine so that everyone is covered. But that it NEEDS to be done. She wants to argue that she is more concerned about gnats in the home (with how she likes to just buy food that will rot in another room and cause gnats and leave pizza in the oven for days) and has more important things to do.
The argument got a little heated and she said that if I did not leave her alone, she wouldn't do anything at all. Basically threatening to punish her own dog and have her tortured with fleas for another year, and have my cat at risk of getting a severe reaction. That quite literally floored me and severely pissed me off. Stupidly threatened that if she was threatening to neglect/abuse her animal over us fighting, that i would contact animal control or find a way to get that poor pup out of the house. That wasn't right of me, but she has done things before that definitely would have deemed animal control and cops being here for animal neglect as necessary. I am at the point that if she doesn't get any type of flea medicine, that I am going to take her dog, without her consent, to the vet myself and get her protected against fleas.
I do feel I was out of line demanding that she get flea meds by this or that way, but I am tired of the constant fighting about the fleas, about the dogs itching despite my best efforts, and her doing little to nothing to not even help take care of her own dog. I feel that you should be doing your damnest to care for a pet that you chose to get. And for her to threaten to put my cat that has severe reactions and is newly diabetic at risk has me on a new high of anger.
Posted Mar 6, 2026, 5:33 PM UTC