Choosing A Flea Treatment

Any pet owner will tell you that the biggest hassle of owning a cat or dog is the flea situation. During a certain time of year, you notice your animal scratching, and you know it won't be long before the whole family is joining in the fun. Fleas are nasty little creatures and can make your life miserable. To make matters worse, there seem to be a million different ways to control fleas, and every one of them promises that it is the best. So how do you choose the right flea treatment for you? Well read on and I'll give you a rundown of what's available.

Before we look at different flea solutions, let's have a closer look at the little blighters themselves. Fleas are only interested in one food source - blood. Before they get to feeding stage, a flea goes through four main stages of development. It starts off as an egg, and eggs are usually laid directly on the host animal. A flea egg is not sticky like some other insect eggs, and for this reason it will more often than not end up in carpets, bedding, or anywhere else the animal rolls or scratches. After the eggs hatch, the flea then enters a larval stage, which lasts a week or two, and then the larva starts to spin a cocoon. It's at this cocoon stage where a flea can decide on it's own lifespan. A cocoon can hatch as soon as 3 days after, or it can wait longer than a year. It will basically wait until the conditions are just right. Once the flea has left the cocoon, it is an adult and ready to find a host to start feeding on. Adult fleas have three pairs of legs, and are famous for their jumping abilities. A flea can jump over 250 times their length. This would be equivalent to a human jumping a third of a mile! They usually have no trouble finding a pet (or a human) to jump on and hitch a ride.

Flea collars for dogs and cats have been around for about 50 years. They are still used quite widely today as the preferred method to control flea problems. The collar is placed around your pets neck, and it slowly releases a small amount of chemical onto the animals skin and fur that kills the fleas that live there. The problem with a flea collar is that it gives an uneven distribution of the insecticide. The treatment is concentrated to the area around the animals neck and head, and is much weaker around it's hind quarters. Quite often all you are doing is sending the fleas to the animals backside, which is why you'll see them troubling the area above their tail, for example.

Topical Application (Or Spot-On)

This method of dog flea treatment is the most popular of all of the ones mentioned here, and for good reason. All that is needed from this treatment is to place a couple of drops on your pets back- that's it! And the best thing is, this solutions keeps your pet for about a month, and handles not only fleas, but ticks and mites as well. There are many different brands out there to choose from, but the three most popular ones are Frontline, Revolution and Advantage. To help you decide, take your pet to the vet and ask them which one would be best. Some of the factors that will affect this decision include the size of your pet, your local climate, and how much fur your pet has.

Giving your pet an internal solution for fleas can be tremendously effective, but as some of you may know, it can also be a real pain trying to get your pet to take medicine. They are worse than children in this respect. The benefit of an oral flea treatment is that they will stop the larva emerging from the eggs, basically stopping the problem before it even begins. The adult fleas will ingest the chemicals in your pets blood stream as they are feeding, and the eggs that they subsequently lay will be infertile.

As a pet owner, you should be bathing your dog at least once a week anyway, so using a flea control shampoo when doing so requires little extra effort on your part, and gives your pet a little added protection. This should not be viewed as a cure all, and should be used in conjunction with other flea treatments, because a shampoo will only last a day or two. Any cat owners will know that this is probably not a good cat flea treatment. Bathing a cat is something you will only usually try once. If you survive that first bath, you will probably not do it again.

Dips are basically very potent, chemical rinses. They will kill pretty much anything that lives on your animal, including fleas, ticks and mites, and the solution will last a couple of weeks. They leave a lot of chemical residue on your animals skin, and are widely viewed as being too potent for pets. That much concentrated chemical on your pets skin cannot be a good thing in the long term. I would only be using a dip for the most severe of cases, and even then I would be thinking twice.

Not many people use powders or sprays on their pets anymore, with all the other flea treatments to choose from, these are probably the least effective. They usually only last a couple of days, and can be messy to apply.

If you are concerned about all these chemicals that are used in the products mentioned above, you may be looking for some natural alternatives for flea control. Luckily, you are not the only one, and there are some tried and true methods for minimising your flea problem without resorting to the hard stuff. If you go to your local pet store you should find a section that stocks all natural powders, sprays and shampoos that will help you in your fight. Another good idea is to give your pet brewers yeast and garlic tablets on a regular basis. These tablets have the added benefit of containing vitamins needed for your pets health. You can also try a combination of lavender, rosemary, eucalyptus and neem oils in your pets grooming routine as natural alternatives. Pennyroyal is a plant that will naturally repel fleas, and planting a few around your house will be of great benefit. You can boil up the leaves of these plants and use the pennyroyal tea when bathing your pet as well.

It's no use going to all this trouble of treating your pet if you're not going to eliminate the eggs from your home as well. You need to be diligent in your vacuuming routine, which means giving a thorough vacuum at least once a week. After vacuuming, sprinkling laundry powder or borax around your carpets will help keep the pests at bay. You also need to wash any clothing, bedding and linen that the fleas may have come into contact with.

Outside the home, you should keep your lawn mowed nice and short, particularly over the summer months. This will give the fleas less places to hide and encourage them to move elsewhere. If you have areas that are hard to keep an eye on (for example, under the house), try your best to keep your pets away from these areas. You can also get a pest control company to come in and spray in these areas.