Preventing Fleas and Tics in Your Pet

It's the time of year when your pets are walking buffets for fleas. They go out by themselves and come in with hitchhiking fleas and tics. Before you know it, one flea can become thousands and they are no longer satisfied with just hanging out on your pet. There are a couple of things you can do to save not only your pet's but your own blood.

The first thing you can do is to keep you pet clipped short for the summer months. I have poodles and we have them stripped for the summer, which means they feel like velvet. Not only is it cooler for them, they dry faster after swimming, and you can easily locate fleas and tics by looking over the pet before they come back in the house. Usually the parasites haven't had time to find their way into the fur and against the skin yet so they are easily removed.

There are a number of products on the market for flea prevention; please note prevention is the key word. Flea collars are possibly the least expensive and most well known however should your pet chew on this collar they will need to go immediately to the vet and pay for Dumb Dog to be injected with an antidote to the poison it ingested. Your inexpensive flea collar just became very costly.

Advantix or Frontline are drugs absorbed into the skin and time released over a month. They make your pet unpalatable to the bloodsuckers. Though they are very effective they are dangerous to humans should they soak into the skin and they can poison you and your pet if ingested. It is imperative you place them on a part of your pet they can't reach even with their paws, usually the back of the neck, and wash your hands well and immediately after application. Applying either product to an animal that is infested with fleas will cause the fleas to jump ship. If your pet is in the house at the time the fleas will be too.

Which brings us to flea shampoo. This is where you end up if the prevention stuff has failed. I've often taken the scissors to the dog before the bath to get rid of any extra fur that will give the fleas refuge and hamper the combing afterwards. Regular shampoo products will not kill flea eggs and any that are not removed during bathing will hatch on schedule and you'll be in the same position in a few days. Be sure to start washing your pet face first. Fleas have difficulty moving through wet fur and will move away from the wetted areas to the dry ones in an attempt to escape. Work from the head to the tail soaping generously as you go and be sure to comb through the coat after the bath to remove the eggs and dead fleas that have become trapped.

If bathing your pet yourself is out of the realm of possibility you can take them to the groomer but you need to alert them to the issue when making the appointment in order for them to take the necessary precautions so other animals in their care won't become infested.