How to Effectively Control Fleas For Your Dog

Fleas are one of the most common parasites your dog can encounter and controlling them can be very challenging. But keeping your dog flea free is extremely important, because these pests can cause serious problems for your dog, including discomfort, dermatitis, tapeworms, and more.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. 
   Flea dirt

   The first step in controlling fleas is convincing yourself that your dog truly does have fleas. If you are seeing live fleas, this step will be easy. However, often fleas can be difficult to find. One good way to find out for certain is to use a flea comb on your dog. A flea comb is a fine toothed comb which will easily remove flea dirt from your dog's hair coat. Flea dirt will appear as small black flecks, resembling pepper. If you are unsure whether the dirt you are seeing is from fleas, put a little of it on a white paper towel and add a few drops of water. Flea dirt will dissolve into blood, leaving red spots on the paper towel. If you find no fleas or flea dirt on your dog, consider yourself lucky and proceed directly to step 10.

2. 
   Flea life cycle

   The second step in controlling your dog's flea population is understanding the life cycle of the flea. One of the most important things you need to understand is that the fleas you are seeing on your dog now came from eggs that were laid anywhere from 3 to 8 months ago. What this means to you and your dog is that that the fleas that you are seeing are only the tip of the iceberg. Living within the area where your dog lives are also large numbers of flea eggs and flea larva. Remember, one adult female flea can produce thousands of eggs within a few days. While it is not impossible that the fleas you see on your dog today jumped on him while he was at the groomer, or the dog park, or the veterinary office, it is much more likely that those fleas are a second or third generation of fleas which arose from a flea or two that your dog picked up several months ago. And now that population has blossomed from one or two fleas which were hardly noticed or not noticed at all into a population of gigantic proportions. And those proportions will continue to grow unless you intervene quickly.

3. Step three in your battle against fleas involves developing realistic expectations regarding controlling your dog's flea problem. Unfortunately, getting rid of all of the fleas overnight is not likely to be a realistic expectation. Likewise, expecting to never see another flea on your dog is also not a realistic expectation.

4. 
   Frontline Plus, one of the options for effective flea control

   Now that you are convinced that your dog has fleas and you understand that there are likely to be fleas in all stages of the life cycle in your house, the next step is determining how to go about getting rid of them. For that purpose, you have a number of different options. Flea medications for treating your pet include tablets which are given daily or as needed(Capstar), or even monthly(Comfortis). Monthly spot-on medications are also popular and include Revolution, Advantage, Advantix K9, Advantage Multi, Frontline Plus, Promeris and others. These products all work quite well, and all have advantages and disadvantages. They will all kill the fleas which are currently on your dog, effectively relieving your pet's discomfort. Some of them are available only with a prescription or from your veterinarian because they also function as heartworm preventive medication and it is important to make certain your dog is free of heartworms before starting these medications.

5. Program and Sentinel are both oral medications (given by mouth) which act by rendering female fleas sterile, so that they cannot produce viable eggs. These products are useful because they are good at breaking the flea life cycle. However, they do not kill adult fleas. For this reason, they are often used in conjunction with one of the medications listed in step 4, which do kill adult fleas.

6. 
   Flea life cycle

   Another important step in controlling a flea infestation is to get rid of the fleas on the premises. Remember, if there are adult fleas on your dog, there are also eggs, larvae, pupae and emerging adults living in your home. These pests will live in your carpeting, rugs, upholstery, draperies, even the cracks and crevices in hardwood floors. One step which can be useful, although somewhat labor intensive, is thoroughly vacuuming the premises. While doing this, make certain that you vacuum not only carpets and rugs, but also hardwood floors, drapery, and furniture where possible. Once done with your vacuuming, be sure that you remove the vacuum bag (or contents of your bagless vacuum) from your home so that fleas cannot breed and reproduce in the bag. While not strictly necessary, this step (especially if done regularly) may help shorten the time taken to achieve a flea-free state in your home.

7. 
   FleaBusters, a borate powder to treat the home

   Another treatment that may help you kill your flea population more quickly is borate powder sprinkled into carpets, rugs, hardwood cracks, etc. However, this product is very messy and dusty and many people do not like it for that reason. If you do decide to incorporate it into your flea fighting arsenal, you need to make certain to get it into the areas where your pet goes. Many people make the mistake of sprinkling on the carpet in the center of the floor where their dog spends very little time. But they may neglect to place it under the bed where their dog sleeps, or under the couch were the cat spends time.

8. Treating the outside environment can be troublesome because many of the insecticides used in the yard are not environmentally friendly and may be dangerous to pets or children who contact them. As with any other product, if you elect to use these products, which would include things like Ortho yard spray and similar products, read and follow all directions carefully. A more environmentally friendly alternative for your yard may be nematodes, which are worms that live in your yard and ingest fleas as part of their natural diet.

9. 
   White paper towel with flea dirt

   Another often overlooked natural means of flea control is regular flea combing. Though this is labor intensive and time consuming, it can be rewarding if done regularly. Though it may not be an efficient means of managing a severe flea infestation, it does have the advantage of being a totally natural means of prevention which involves no chemicals.

10. And finally, once you have finally won your battle with those pesky fleas, don't forget to start a preventive flea program. The monthly spot-on products (Frontline Plus, Advantage, Advantage Multi, Advantix, Promeris, Revolution) are a great choice for this purpose. By religiously following a monthly preventive program, you will be able to avoid serious flea infestations in the future.

Tips & Warnings

• Fleas can be present at any time of the year. You should not stop using your dog's flea prevention when the temperatures dip.
• It is much easier to prevent a flea problem by using monthly flea preventive medications than to try to control the infestation once it exists.
• When trying to control fleas, it is important to treat all the animals in your households. This includes your cats as well as your dog.
• If your dog is extremely uncomfortable and scratching, or suffering from severe flea allergies, the use of Capstar or Comfortis may give more immediate relief than some of the other products discussed because they usually have a faster kill rate. These products kill fleas within hours as opposed to a day or more for other products.
• Never use a product not labeled for cats on a cat. Many of the flea medications which are safe and effective for our dogs are quite toxic for a cat.
• When using any flea medication, read the label directions carefully and follow them precisely. Do not alter from the label instructions unless under the supervisions of a veterinarian. Doing so may endanger your pet's health!