pets home
September 17, 2010
How to Avoid or Get Rid of Fleas on Your Pet
Fleas. Even saying the word makes us itch. These tiny creatures can make your pet miserable, and in turn make you miserable. Plus, once they latched on to your pet and made a home in your house, they are very hard to get rid of. Bottom line, fleas are a pain.
DogWatch Hidden Fences want to help you avoid this pain by providing the following tips to avoid or get rid of fleas on your pet and in your home. Early fall is the peak of flea season, so we encourage you to follow our three easy steps right away!
PREVENT
Getting rid of fleas on your pet and in your house can be a long, challenging and expensive process – so why not avoid them all together? There are several widely-available flea prevention products that you can use monthly to protect your pet from fleas.
The most popular prevention product, Frontline, is available for cats and dogs, and can be found at your vet or your local pet superstore. It is a gel that is applied in between the pet’s shoulder blades, so that the pet won’t lick it off. The product then seeps into the pet’s oil glands under his skin, and is distributed throughout his hair. This creates an inhospitable environment for fleas, and causes them to literally “flee” the pet and stay away for a full month. Frontline also works on ticks – so you get twice the power!
K9 Advantix (for dogs only) and Advantage (for dogs and cats) are two other, similar flea prevention products that perform largely the same function using a different chemicals. (A side-by-side-by-side comparison can be found here.) As always, talk to your vet about what is best for your animals.
A couple of things to note about these products: 1) they are approved for cats and dogs as young as 8 weeks, and 2) it is recommended that you do not bathe the pet within two days before or two days after the product is applied, to ensure that the chemical is properly distributed.
CLEAN