"Why would you put flea medicine on a cat who's never set foot outside?" my mom asked on the phone last week. It's a fair question. For nine years, I didn't.
Mabel has been indoor-only since the day I carried her home from the Coon Rapids clinic in a cardboard box. She has never been on a leash, never been in the yard and never seemed to want either. Her version of the outdoors is the dining room window and the birds at the feeder. For most of her life, flea and tick prevention was something we bought for the dog.
The dog is the complication.
Hank brings the outdoors in
Hank takes a monthly chew for heartworm, fleas and ticks all year long, $21.70 a dose with my staff discount. In Minnesota that isn't overkill. Deer ticks get going whenever it's above freezing, and Hank spends his life with his nose in exactly the places they wait: the brushy edge of the Rum River trail, the ditches along the Sunrise Prairie Trail, the long grass behind the garage.
The chew protects Hank. It doesn't stop a tick from riding into the house on his coat before it attaches, or a flea from hitching a ride on him or on our jeans. I check him every night in tick season, and I still miss some. Last summer I found a tick strolling across a cushion on the gray sofa, not attached to anyone, just touring.
And this winter something changed. While Hank was on crate rest after his knee surgery, Mabel moved into his orthopedic dog bed, and she has never fully given it back. They now share that bed in shifts, plus the sofa, plus the rug in front of the radiator. An indoor cat who sleeps where the outdoor dog sleeps is a little less indoor than she used to be.
The talk with our vet
I brought this up with our vet in April, around the time Mabel's insurance started, and I liked how the answer was framed. Nobody said every indoor cat needs prevention. Plenty of indoor-only cats in dog-free homes do fine without it, and it's a judgment call based on the household. In ours, with a big dog who's outside every day in tick country and a cat who now sleeps in his bed, seasonal coverage through the busiest months made sense.
Then came the rule I've heard at our front counter a hundred times: products made for dogs never go on cats. Some ingredients that are fine for a dog can make a cat very sick. Whatever Mabel gets has to be labeled for cats, and nothing gets borrowed from Hank's shelf, ever.
This is a plan for our two animals, worked out with the vet who knows them. If you're weighing this for your own cat, your vet can look at your household and tell you what fits it.
What we settled on for 2026
- A topical made for cats, once a month, May through October. Six doses, timed to the stretch when ticks are busiest, the windows are open and Hank is outside the most.
- $24 a dose at list price, $16.80 with my discount, so about $100.80 for the season.
- Paid from the monthly pet budget, not insurance. Mabel's new policy is accident and illness only, with no wellness add-on, so preventives were never going to be covered.
- Hank stays on his year-round chew, and the nightly tick check continues. The best flea plan for the cat is still catching things on the dog first.
We'll revisit it next spring. If this turns out to be more than a mostly sleeping cat needs, the worst case is that we spent about a hundred dollars on peace of mind. Fleas in a house with a big dog, old oak floors full of cracks and a fabric sofa would cost a lot more than that to get rid of, in money and in my sanity.
Dose one
The first dose went on last night, May 1, at the back of her neck where she can't reach it. Mabel flinched, turned around to give me a long look of total betrayal, then groomed the air for a while. The box said to keep other pets from licking the spot until it dried, so Hank got sent to the kitchen with a chew, which he considered a promotion.
By bedtime she was asleep in his bed again.
