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Fleas are an order of very small brown blood-sucking parasites containing over 2,000 different species. Fleas (along with ticks) are the most common external parasites in household pets, and can infest dogs at any time of the year. They are a serious direct health problem to your pet, and when a dog is allowed to become heavily infested, it is susceptible to other serious illnesses because of its debilitating condition.
How Are Fleas Detected?
Knowing how to get rid of fleas begins at detection. Fleas can be detected easily on smooth-coated dogs, but are often hard to see on long-coated pets. The first sign may be a quick glimpse of a dark bug scurrying through the coat or the presence of small black specks on the skin or in the hair. The specks are flea excrement, the end product mostly of blood sucked from the dog, also called flea dirt.
How do Dogs Become Infested with Fleas?
Dogs frequently get infested with fleas when they come in contact with other animals that are already infested or in contact with fleas in the environment. The sturdy back legs of this bug allow it to jump from one host to other or from the surrounding environment onto the host. It is important to know that, fleas can only jump only; they can’t fly because they don’t have wings. One female flea can lay 40-50 eggs daily, which means that infestation can begin overnight.
What Makes Fleas Harmful?
Fleas are an annoyance. These small, blood-sucking pests irritate your dog and can even harm your pet in a number of ways, ranging from mild irritation to more significant disease.
Flea Allergy Dermatitis
Flea bites can be serious. The flea bites by sticking its syringe-like mouth into the dog’s skin and pumping the blood into its stomach. During feeding, the flea secretes saliva into the dog’s skin, which causes severe itching. Dogs often develop hypersensitivity to flea saliva which can result in a chronic condition, flea allergy dermatitis, in which the dog’s fierce scratching and biting produces hair loss and the skin becomes inflamed and infected. This tends to occur most often on the back, just in front of the tail, on the abdomen, and between the legs.
Anemia
Adult fleas are hardy, ravenous, and persistent blood-suckers. They can consume up to 15 times their body weight in blood daily. If your pet is very heavily infested, this can cause anemia in no time.
Carriers for Disease
Fleas also act as a carrier for plague and also act as hosts for the most common parasite in dogs, “dipylidium caninum” (a tapeworm).
Flea Control
Fleas don’t stay in one place for long, and their amazing jumping talents make control difficult. To know how to get rid of fleas effectively, it is important to understand their life cycles.
Fleas live on a dog just long enough to bite it and acquire the necessary blood for reproduction. Adult female fleas lay eggs loose on the dog’s body; they fall off on the floor or in the dog’s bedding to hatch. Female ticks drop off the dog after breeding and look for quiet places in the house (or kennel) to deposit their eggs: in carpeting and drapes, under the furniture, in the dog’s bedding, and the baseboards or floor cracks and crevices. The hatched flea larvae then mature and wait for a host to infest or re-infest. Eventually, your house, yard, or kennel can become an incubator for eggs and larvae.
How to Get Rid of Fleas
Flea and tick control is done with several products and depends on the type of pet you own, the animal’s environment, and your climate. There are many approaches that can be taken to tackle fleas, and many of them can be combined to increase overall effectiveness.
Flea Collars
Flea collars are effective for most dogs. They contain vaporizing agents that kill fleas or ticks for up to 4 months. Special collars are available for puppies and large dogs, and most are readily available over-the-counter. We’ve personally had good luck with Seresto, which contains the active flea-killing ingredients Flumethrin and Imidacloprid.
Topical Solutions
In This method, a few drops of topical medicine are applied along the pet’s back or between the shoulder blades. These control adult fleas as well as flea eggs when applied monthly. Over-the-counter and prescription options are available.
Oral Medication and Chewable Tablets
Oral medicines in the form of chewable tablets are also available. These medicines work systemically and kill adult fleas within a few hours after ingestion. As a result, adult fleas are unable to reproduce and deposit eggs into the surrounding environment. Because fleas are killed quickly, your pets are less likely to face irritation, itching, and flea allergy dermatitis. These products can be effective for one to three months and can be either one-time/as-needed, while other oral medications are administered monthly as a preventative. We love Simparica, which is a by-prescription medicine for treatment and prevention, but there are also non-prescription options available.
Dog Flea Shampoos
Many high-quality, safe, non-irritating shampoos are formulated especially to rid puppies and adult dogs of fleas, lice, and ticks. They will often contain mild flea treatment and other ingredients, such as oatmeal, to soothe irritated skin. When shampooing, allow the lather to remain on the coat for several minutes for the insecticide to take effect.
If there is heavy infestation, you can prepare a bath with a stronger medicated shampoo. There are also medicines available that can be added to the water tub, but extra pprecautions must be taken to avoid contact with eyes and prevent water from entering the mouth when using stronger medicated bath solutions.
Non-Medicated Sprays
Non-medicated sprays that contain essential oils (especially peppermint oil, a popular natural repellent for many pests, including fleas, spiders, mosquitoes, and roaches) are also available and are found very effective against fleas. Because many of these sprays contain only natural ingredients, they can be safely used on many surfaces in the home, including bedding, carpets, and some can even be applied topically directly to the dog. However, they are for external use only and should not be given orally, and they can have a very strong smell due to the repellent oils.
Treatment of the Home
To eliminate the fleas completely and to avoid re-infestation, control of the dog’s daily environment is important. This is particularly true in cases of severe infestations when pets, as well as people, are suffering irritation from bites. Vacuum the dog’s bedding, your furniture, carpets, and rugs. After vacuuming, immediately dispose of the vacuum bags (in a sealed outdoor bin, in plastic, or by burning), or fully sanitize reuseable vacuum canisters and filters to destroy all eggs and larvae. Clean the cracks in the floors and around the baseboard. Indoor insecticidal sprays and non-medicated sprays can be applied directly to furniture, rugs, drapes, and the dog’s bedding.
Treatment of the Yard
Treatment of pets and their immediate surroundings only will sometimes not be sufficient to eliminate the fleas, due to their extensive life cycle and hardiness year-round. So, in particularly stubborn infestations, all the indoor and outdoor areas where your pet rests, plays, or sleeps should be treated with an insecticide spray. Be mindful of when it is safe to allow your dog into areas that have been treated, as stronger insecticides will have a longer wait period between application and when it is safe for your dog to resume use of a treated area.
Flea Traps
Flea traps that use a light and a glue board can be useful for capturing adult fleas and monitoring treatment progress. Unless used in conjunction with other methods, the traps will not be effective in eradicating an infestation. Most traps use an alternating on-off (green) light, as studies have proven that fleas respond to green light more than any other wavelengths.
Combine Efforts for Best Results
To really get in control of a flea problem, the most aggressive approach is generally going to provide the best results. For instance, using oral flea prevention while also treating your yard and incorporating non-medicated sprays in the home is going to be a more well-rounded approach than any one of those options on its own. However, always make sure you speak with your veterinarian before using any medicines together to ensure that the specific medications you use are indeed safe to be used in a complimentary fashion and will not cause harm when combined.
Have you ever had to deal with fleas before? How did you handle it, and what ended up working for you? Let us know in the comments!
