Fleas |
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How do fleas affect your pet?
Every dog and cat is susceptible to picking up fleas. Pets acquire fleas from the environment where other animals have been. This could be the backyard, your home or the park.
Fleas need to suck blood frequently in order to survive and reproduce. The bites are irritating to your pets and often result in intense itching. This itching can lead to complications such as skin infections, known as 'Hot Spots', as well as large areas of hair loss. Some pets can even develop an allergy to flea saliva and react very severely.
If fleas are left untreated they can cause severe diseases. A large infestation of fleas can cause enough blood loss resulting in anaemia and even death! |
The life cycle of the flea
The flea goes through four stages of life; starting from egg, to larva to pupa and finally finally emerging as an adult flea. The adults live on your pets and lay there eggs here too. One single female flea can lay up to 50 eggs per day. These eggs then fall of the pets coat and into their environment.
Within a few days, the eggs hatch into larvae.
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| These larvae then move away from the light to hide in dark nooks and crannies where they feed on small particles of debris like flea dirt and tapeworm eggs. Eventually the larvae pupate and spin a coccoon where the adult flea starts to develop within. The pupae can survive for many months until the conditions are favourable for the adult fleas to emerge. |
The adult fleas are stimulated into hatching by warmth, carbon dioxide and vibrations, which can come from the pet itself or people in the environment. The simple action of moving furniture or even the footsteps of the pet is enough to stimulate the adult fleas into hatching.
Once the adult has emerged, it jumps back onto the pet where the whole cycle begins again. This process from egg to flea can take as little as 2 weeks. |
How can you tell if your pet has fleas?
Fleas are very small and very fast little pests. A single flea living on your pet is enough to cause intense itching and discomfort but is not always going to be easy to find. Fleas do seem to prefer certain areas on your pet such as the base of the tail, around the ears and neck and on the abdomen. The best way to determine whether your pet has fleas is by regular grooming. Where there are fleas, there are flea faeces, known commonly as 'flea dirt'. Running a comb or brush through your pets coat will loosen and shake off any debris within the skin. Place this debris on a piece of moist white paper or tissue and if the debris begins to dissolve and produce a red tinged stain, then your pet has fleas! The reason the stain is red is because these particles are flea faeces which contain a lot of ingested blood. |
Treating and controlling fleas
Because so much of the fleas life cycle takes place within the pets environment, it is difficult to completely remove fleas altogether, particularly when your pets spend time outdoors. Regular vacuuming of the house can help to remove the different stages of the flea life cycle as well as their faeces which are a food source for the larvae. Frequent washing of your pets bedding also aids in the control of fleas on within your home.
The best method of flea control, however, is to use a product on your animal. There are many products available for treating fleas on your pets, including monthly top-spot applications, flea collars, tablets and injections. These treatments work by either killing the live adults, the eggs and/or the larvae or rendering the adults sterile, thus breaking the breeding cycle.
Please don't hesitate to call us so that we can assist you with choosing a flea control regime that suits you and your pet. |
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