Fleas and Ticks Prevention and Treatment

Treatment and prevention of fleas and ticks are essential for the health of your dogs and cats. External parasites can cause a variety of health problems and transmit a number of serious problems.

Fleas

Although very tiny, fleas can wreak havoc on your pets and your home. Fleas are found from other flea-infested animals (wildlife such as opossums and raccoons), or stray dogs and cats. Flea eggs can lay dormant for 180 days where your dog or cat plays.

Once infested, your pet will suffer from itchiness and could develop a flea allergy. Tapeworm infections are also caused when your pet ingests a flea.

 

Ticks

Ticks can cause more than a dozen different diseases. Your pet is susceptible to ticks when walking through woods, high grass or in an area near wildlife.

 

Treatment and Prevention

Ridgeview Animal Clinic recommends Seresto Collar, Bravecto or Nexgard for dogs. Other products can be tailored to your pet to prevent heartworms and intestinal parasites, but unfortunately there’s not one product that takes care of everything. For cats, we recommend Advantage Multi to prevent, heartworms, ear mites,

If your dog or cat has fleas or ticks, please contact our office to see what product works best for you.

 

Tips for Controlling A Flea Infestation

If you haven’t been using an effective flea preventative and you find your home or pet with fleas:

  1. Go to your veterinarian and get a minimum of three to four months of preventative for each animal. Ideally, pets should be treated year round, but expect to treat for a minimum of three months to eliminate the entire flea cycle. While it’s tempting to purchase over-the-counter flea medications, they are proven to be less effective. Most come from over seas and may contain unknown chemicals not regulated by the FDA.
  2. Correctly apply the preventative to each of your pets.
  3. Treat your house by either purchasing area sprays and flea bombs or hiring an exterminator. This step is extremely important as 90% of your infestation is not on your pet, but in the larval or egg form in your carpet, home, or where ever your pet spends their time. Without treating your home, the egg and larval forms hatch out and will reinfect your pet.
  4. Treat your pet(s) every 30 days for at least 3 months.

The best way to prevent a flea infestation from reoccurring is to keep your pets on month flea preventative year round.