HELP! My pet has fleas!

My Dog has fleas! What do I do?   My Cat has fleas! What do I do?

We hear this a lot. We also hear "I've never seen a flea. My pet doesn't have fleas." Basically, it is extremely likely that your pet has had the occasional flea, even if they never go outside. Even if you never see a flea. Even if you bathe them all the time. Even if they wear a flea collar you bought at a retail store. The problem is, fleas come from wildlife outside, as well as other pets. Walking along outside, a flea may jump on your clothing. Because humans are colder than fleas like, as soon as you approach a nice furry, warm animal, like your dog or cat, the flea jumps off you and onto your pet.  

Each adult flea is able to produce up to 50 unkillable eggs a day within about 24 hours of biting your pet. The adult flea continues to live on your dog, running around, biting your pet up to 200 times a day for additional meals (of blood!) and continuing to produce more flea eggs. The eggs, dried flea feces and some bits of dried blood fall off your pet and end up in the deepest recessess of your furniture, floor, carpeting or anywhere else they happen to land. They are "sticky" so it is hard to remove them. The eggs hatch into larvae (gross, worm-like things) that are almost impossible to see without magnification. These larve live on the feces and dried blood that fell off your pet. After a while, the larva spins a cocoon, where it develops into a starving, small adult flea. When your pet walks by, the flea senses the vibrations and heat and jumps on your pet and starts biting it's new host, getting blood meals. For a video of this nasty cycle, click on the flea at the left side.

The hotter and moister the environment is, the faster the cycle of adult flea to egg to larva to adult flea happens. If it is cooler, or dryer, the cycle takes longer. Fleas in their various stages can live for up to two YEARS without a host (like a dog or cat or possum or rabbit or, well, you get the idea). Since most animals chew at the itchy spot when the adult flea bites, the flea either rapidly runs to another part of the pet's body or is eaten (potentially infecting your pet with tapeworms, by the way). So it is rare for a person to actually see a flea on their pet unless they are just swarming with them. Each adult flea you see is an indicator of 95 other fleas in various stages of the life cycle in that area. By the time you see a few fleas, there is a BIG problem.

This is why it is essential to:

1) Apply safe, effective flea preventative medication to your pet regularly, year round. (It doesn't get below freezing to kill the fleas in the typical home, so not applying prevention in the winter is asking for a problem to develop)

2) Treat ALL the flea susceptible pets in your home for fleas regularly. Any untreated animals act as a constant source of new flea eggs.

3) If you have pets other than dogs or cats, check with their veterinarian  to see if flea prevention is needed and what is safe to use. Using medicine designed for another species may be poisonous to your pet. At the very least, it may be ineffective. At the worst, it may kill the pet. When in doubt check with your veterinarian.

3) Follow the label directions for the preventative medicine you are applying to the pet. If your pet takes Program or Sentinel, giving this medicine with a meal is essential. If you give it on an empty stomach, the flea sterilizing medicine is not absorbed, thus does not help control fleas.