Flea Problems

Frontline 6pk Small Dog 1-22 Lbs

Frontline 6pk Medium 23-44 Lbs

Frontline 6pk Large 45-88 Lbs

Frontline 6pk X-large 89+ Lbs

Frontline 6pk Cat/kittens

Frontline Spray 250ml Bottle

Flea infestation is one of the most common health problem in dogs and cats. Almost every dog and cat will become infested with fleas at some time during their life. These tiny, almost-invisible pests are much more than an annoyance. They make life miserable by disrupting your household with a vicious cycle of biting and scratching. Fleas don't just make your pet itchy, they can actually make him/her quite ill. Be aware of how fleas can irritate your pet! It might be difficult to see fleas, but they certainly can make their presence felt, especially to your pet.

When your dog gets fleas, it can also lead to tapeworms as well as nasty skin infections. The best way to prevent this is to start protecting against an infestation before there is a problem. If you have already noticed signs of fleas on your pet, you have a lot of work to do to get rid of them.

Even if you just see one flea, keep in mind that each female flea can lay more than 1,000 eggs. The eggs develop into larvae and pupae that inhabit your carpet, yard, furniture, and can even be in YOUR bed.

Start off with bathing your dog. You may want to have your dog professionally groomed so that the dog is out of the house for a few hours and you can concentrate on getting the fleas out of your home before the dog returns. Even if the dog is bathed and you still have an infestation of fleas in your home or yard, as soon as the dog sets foot back in the house he can get the fleas back on him again.

Remove all of your dogs bedding (and your own) and wash them. You may want to place them in garbage bags that are tied shut until there is enough room in the washer for them. Next you want to vacuum thoroughly- including under the couch, chairs, etc. Fleas love to hide out in dark places. When you are finished vacuuming your house, take the vacuum bag out of the vacuum and tape it shut and throw it away. Never leave the bag in the dryer- fleas can actually reproduce inside the vacuum bag and crawl back out! Fleas can also live for a year with no food- they go into hibernation and awake when they feel the movement of you (or your pet) walking- then they awake to feast.

Treat your yard as well- you can buy flea killing lawn sprays at most home improvement stores. Also be sure to keep your yard clear of leaves and vegetation. Keep in mind that sunlight will kill the flea larvae, so it's best to mow your lawn often and keep it clear of leaves.

Ants are a natural predator to fleas, so allow them to thrive in your yard. You can also add nematodes to your lawn- nematodes are microscopic worms that prey on the larvae and pupae of fleas. They are available at pet and garden stores- a 300 gram canister contains about 100 million of the little worms, so that will really help end your flea problem in the yard.

You should also put your pet on an anti-flea topical medication such as Frontline. Frontline will kill fleas that bite your pet and it will last for a month. There is also a product called "Program" which stops the fleas reproductive cycle. You can give it in either a pill or a liquid, and it is administered once a month. The active ingredient, lufenuron, blocks the synthesis of chitin, the foundation of the insect's skeleton, so that the fleas offspring die as eggs or larvae. This will not kill any of the adult fleas though.

Tick Prevention
Keeping grass and weeds trimmed to below ankle height will put ticks at a disadvantage.

Although mature ticks "stalk" large prey, younger ticks typically feed on mice and other rodents before graduating to pets. Making your yard inhospitable to rodents will help eliminate the ticks. Remove brushy cover and rock piles and secure trash cans with spring-top lids," she suggests. It's also a good idea to stack firewood away from the house. Move bird feeders away, too, since rodents may be attracted to the seed.

Flea Facts
Flea fossils date back to the Lower Cretaceous period, meaning fleas have been around for about 100 million years. At that time, their neighbors might have been a Tyrannosaurus Rex or Triceratops!

Some fleas can jump 150 times their own length. That compares to a human jumping 1,000 feet. One flea broke a record with a four-foot vertical jump.

Undisturbed and without a blood meal, a flea can live more than 100 days. On average, they live two to three months.

Female fleas cannot lay eggs until after their first blood meal and begin to lay eggs within 36-48 hours after that meal.

The female flea can lay 2,000 eggs in her lifetime; if all 53 million dogs in the U.S. each hosted a population of 60 fleas, we'd have more than six trillion flea eggs surrounding our pets. Laid end-to-end, those eggs would stretch around the world more than 76 times!

The female flea consumes 15 times her own body weight in blood daily.

While adult fleas all suck blood from a cat or dog or other mammal, their larvae live and feed on organic debris in the host animal's environment

Flea larvae are blind.

If you happen to see one flea, there may be more than 100 offspring or adults looming nearby in furniture, corners, cracks, carpeting or on your pet.

The cat flea, which infests both cats and dogs, is a tropical insect and cannot tolerate freezing temperatures for long periods of time. However, they are well adapted to indoor living.

While there are more than 2,000 known species and subspecies of fleas, only one flea species -- the cat flea -- accounts for almost all the fleas found on cats and dogs in the United States.

Fleas are often confused with bedbugs, lice and ticks.

The largest recorded flea is the North American Hystrichopsylla schefferi, measuring 12mm in length - almost 1/2-inch!