What are dog fleas or cat fleas?
How to prevent your animal from catching dog fleas
Ticks on your dog
What are dog fleas or cat fleas?
Fleas are parasites that live on dogs and cats. Dog fleas are not
only unpleasant for your animal; they can also cause a skin
condition called flea allergy dermatitis (FAD). If your dog or cat
suffers from flea infestations quite frequently, the bloodsucking of
the fleas can cause iron deficiency anemia. Very young animals can
even die.
A dog and cat flea treatment is absolutely necessary, not only
because of the reasons mentioned above. They can become life
threatening as they transmit various other diseases such as murine
typhus or worms. That can also affect the pet owners and cause
unpleasant and dangerous diseases.
The symptoms of a dog flea infestation are:
· Scratching
· Small black or white grains (flea eggs) in your dog's or cat's
places
A dog flea can lay 30-40 eggs per day. These eggs will usually fall
off the infested animal and land on your carpet. After only 3 days
the eggs form into larvae. The larvae prefer the deeper areas of
your carpet where they stay for about 1-2 weeks. After that period
they pupate. In this stage they cannot be destroyed by insecticides.
Another two weeks later the fleas will be "adults" in their cocoon.
Certain triggers let the fleas come out of their protective shell,
for example the carbon dioxide that is exhaled by a passing host.
Anybody can get those dog fleas. And even when there is no immediate
trigger, the fleas will survive almost a year in their stage.
How to prevent your animal from catching dog fleas
Despite the common belief, dog fleas are not that easy to catch for
an animal from another animal. The fleas do not "jump over" to the
next host as often depicted. Occasional contact is not dangerous.
However, longer contact with an infested animal will infest your
animal as well.
The fleas that your dog catches when outside playing or when running
around in the forest will not cause a flea infestation. Therefore,
the only way for your dog to catch fleas is when spending time with
another infested animal or when visiting a household that is
infested by fleas.
When your animals have caught fleas, an immediate dog flea treatment
has to be started for ALL the animals, even if only one of them is
affected. Otherwise the fleas could just hide on one animal and
later infest the others again.
Ticks
Especially in the summer you and your dog are outside a lot.
Therefore you are both more likely to catch a tick when passing
bushes and trees in wooded areas. That is where the ticks hide until
they "fall on" their new host. The "falling" is triggered by
movement, warm body temperatures or the carbon dioxide that your dog
exhales. Once the tick catches a host it will bite. Your dog will
probably not even notice that. Also because ticks are very tiny it
is very hard for you to discover tick bites on your dog.
It is absolutely important to examine your dog for ticks after your
dog has been playing outside. Ticks like warm areas, therefore check
especially the neck, ears, between the toes and under the "arms".
Ticks can cause not only skin infections but also transmit diseases
from prior hosts.
Click here to learn more about a natural dog flea treatment and on
how to remove a tick and treat a tick bite
