A lot of people will stop their flea control during the winter months. They figure that since fleas need warm temperatures to breed that you are pretty safe during the colder months. Unfortunately they couldn’t be more wrong!

It is true that the majority of fleas and flea eggs that are caught outside will die off during the cold winter months, but not every flea will die.

Fleas don’t have a calendar. The don’t see that it is August and it is the middle of winter. All they know and understand is the temperature and humidity of their microenvironment. For most dogs and cats, this microenvironment includes your house.

Unless you are really energy conscious (or masochistic), I can bet that your house does not reach the same temperature as it does outside. If your house is as cold as the outside temperature, then I feel sorry for you and you have bigger problems than a few fleas. The rest of us with heated houses are unknowingly providing a perfect environment for fleas inside the house.

If the temperature in your house remains somewhere in the 20 degrees celsius range during winter, then fleas will keep breeding all year round. It might take them a little bit longer than it would in the summertime, but they will still breed.

So if you stop you flea control thinking you are safe, then you are setting yourself up for disaster. Small (or large) numbers of fleas will continue to survive and breed, setting themselves up nicely for a population explosion in the springtime.

Don’t set yourself up for a springtime flea disaster. Continue your flea control efforts all year round and you will be rewarded.

Technorati Tags: flea control, flea treatment, fleas in winter

I thought I had seen just about everything that anyone can use for flea control. But some people will surprise you at the lengths they will go to ignore the stuff that actually works, and try some random treatment instead.

Dr V. at the pawcurious blog recently had a patient come in whose owner had decided that mayonnaise was the next big thing in flea treatment. How or why they thought it might work is beyond me.

It did nothing for the fleas, and the poor dog ended up itchy, greasy and smelly.

If you have a flea problem, sitck to the tried and true methods. There is a reason that we use them.

Check out the post here: fleas and novel ideas not to try

Photo: The Vista Dome

Technorati Tags: errors, flea control, flea treatment, mistakes

When we think of fleas, we usually think of the discomfort that they cause our pet dogs and cats. But fleas can also cause humans trouble too.  Just check out this photo of flea bites on a human’s foot.

Flea allergy dermatitis just basically means that you are allergic to the saliva of the flea. It most commonly is seen in dogs and cats, because they are much more likely to have flea infestations than humans.

However, when flea infestations are really bad (or there are no animals to jump onto), fleas will quite happily jump onto a human for a meal.

Now don’t panic – the cat flea cannot complete its life cycle on a human, so you won’t have your own flea infestation. But the bites can certainly be itchy, and they may possibly be infected.

If you notice any bites like these on your feet or anywhere else on your body, it is worth giving your dog or cat a very thorough check over for fleas.

If you find a flea or flea dirt on your pet, then you need to start treatment straight away. As long as there are fleas in the environment they will jump onto you and your pets to have a meal.

Whatever you do, don’t send the pets outside if you find fleas on them! This will only leave you and your family for fleas to feed on, making the problem worse.

Instead, treat your pet and let the fleas come to them (they prefer dogs and cats over humans). Make sure to treat every pet and keep treating every month.

If you do have itchy bites like this on your feet, it is also probably worth a visit to your doctor who may be able to give you something to stop the itching and swelling.

To a flea free pet!

Dr. Simon

photo: jebb

Technorati Tags: flea allergy dermatitis, flea bites, flea control, flea treatment

Why is fast speed of kill important? Well, it takes around 48 hours for fleas to begin laying eggs once they have started to feed. If we can kill the fleas before they can lay any eggs, then this will break the life cycle and fix your flea problem faster.

In a study done by Dryden, Smith, Payne and McTier in 2005, selamectin (Revolution), fipronil-(S)-methoprene (Frontline) and imidacloprid(Advantage & Advocate)were compared to see which flea treatment product kills fleas the fastest. They were tested for speed of kill at days 2, 7, 14, 21 and 28, to simulate what would happen over the course of a monthly flea treatment.

Following initial application, imidacloprid was the only product to cause significant flea reduction in 6 hours.  By 24 hours of applications, all three products had killed at least 96.7% of fleas on the pet. So basically, after a day, almost all of the fleas on the pet will be killed regardless of which product you use.

One week after treatment, all three products were still going strong. Each product reduced flea populations by around 70% in 6 hours, and had killed 99.4% of fleas in 24 hours. This is good – no fleas are living long enough to lay eggs and reinfest the environment.

Three weeks after initial application, the speed of kill for all the products had decreased significantly, with none of the formulations killing fleas within 6 hours.  At 28 days after treatment – selamectin killed 99% in 48 hours, fipronil-(s)-methoprene killed 86.4% within 48 hours, and imidacloprid killed 72.6% within 48 hours. This is where things start to drop off, which is why these products need to be used monthly.

From these results, we can see is that there is no real difference between any of the products for the majority of the time. Imidacloprid gets a jump start on the other product and starts killing fleas sooner, but by 24 hours they are mostly the same. At the end of the month, selamectin has the most staying power, still killing 99% of fleas before they are able to breed.

Interestingly, another study (McCoy et al, 2008)- showed that Revolution is more effective than Frontline Plus and Advantage in reducing the amount of blood consumed by fleas.

In reality, it doesn’t matter which of these products you use. They are all excellent products and will do a much better job of killing fleas than any flea shampoos, flea collars, flea powders or natural flea treaments.

To a flea free pet!

Dr. Simon

Technorati Tags: advantage, advocate, fipronil, flea control, flea treatment, frontline plus, imidacloprid, revolution, selamectin

Unless you have a very minor flea infestation, it almost always takes a few months to get rid of it no matter what you do. It doesn’t matter what product you use, or how many times you wash your pet. The reason it takes so long is due to the “flea development window”. If you understand this concept then you will save yourself a lot of frustration.

The flea development window is based around basic flea biology. Adult female fleas lay around 40 eggs per day. These fall off your pet into the environment, landing in areas like your house, car, and back yard. These eggs hatch in 1 to 10 days, and become larvae. These larvae then develop into pupae in 5 to 11 days. Fleas will remain in their pupa for anywhere from 7 to 174 days.

Flea control, for the most part, is concerned with killing adult fleas. If you are using any of the flea control products that I recommend here, then they are likely to kill 99.9% of the fleas on your pet. Unfortunately, they does nothing to prevent the development of eggs, larvae and pupae already in the environment. These will continue to develop and hatch, then jump onto your pet.

The adult stage of the flea is the “window” – the point in the flea’s life cycle that we can effectively intervene and reduce flea numbers.

Have you ever had a situation where you used flea control, and the problem seemed to get worse instead of better? You might think that it is a giant conspiracy theory, and the drug companies are lacing their products with flea eggs to keep you buying their product. Unfortunately the truth is much less exciting. This is the flea development window at work.

Sometimes the flea population is on the verge of explosion, with heaps and heaps of flea eggs, larvae and pupae in the environment. At this stage, applying flea control product is too late to stop the onslaught. The product will kill all the fleas on your pet, but all of those fleas in the environment will hatch and jump onto your pet over the next 3 weeks to 6 months.

You might be thinking “How does knowing about this change what I need to do for my pet?”. It all boils down to this: we can’t effectively kill all of the stages of the flea life cycle. We can only really do anything about the adult fleas. Every time a flea survives on your pet long enough to lay eggs, you are going to be dealing with another 50 or more fleas in a few weeks to months.

This really highlights the importance of using flea control on every pet in your household, every month, every time. Any lapses in your flea control strategy and you will have to deal with another few months worth of fleas on your pet.

Every day you delay in treating your pet is another 40-50 fleas (or much more!) that you will have to deal with in the future. Save your self the headache, buy your pets some flea control today!

To a flea free pet!

Dr. Simon

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/funkybug/

Technorati Tags: eggs, flea control, flea treatment, larvae, life cycle, pupae

Photo: PóDeTalco

One of the reasons that people find flea control so difficult is that they don’t have the right information. If you are operating under false assumptions, it is bound to end in failure. To help you understand your enemy and win the battle on fleas, here is a list of 8 common myths about flea control.

1. Dogs and cats are infested by different species

It is true that there are many different species of flea (almost 3000 in fact). There are species named after the dog and the cat (Ctenocephalides canis and Ctenocephalides felis respectively). However, these names are misleading, because almost every flea infestation in a dog or cat in Australia is due to the cat flea. In fact, there is some debate as to whether the dog flea might actually be extinct in Australia!

2. Fleas jump from one pet to another.

Once a flea has jumped onto its host and had a blood meal, they must continue feeding or they will die within a few hours. Rather than risk death by a mistimed jump onto another pet, fleas will remain on one dog or cat for their entire lives. It might seem like a flea has jumped onto your pet from someone else’s sometimes, for example after a visit to the dog park. What really happens though, is that fleas who have hatched in the environment have jumped onto your dog while it was playing (this takes less than a second!).

3. Indoor pets don’t get fleas.

Just because your pet is inside doesn’t mean it is immune to infestation. People can bring “hitch-hiker” fleas into your home. These fleas jump onto a human, mistaking it for a dog or cat. Once they realise they have made the wrong choice (our blood tastes funny), they will drop off and find a more suitable host. This is one situation where fleas will jump from one host to another. Screen doors also don’t present much of a barrier to fleas. If there are wild animals dropping flea eggs around your yard, and some land right near the door, then those fleas can easily make it through the screen mesh.

4. If your pets have fleas then your home is dirty.
Fleas are often associated with filth and vermin, and certainly can be found intimately associated with them. And sure, a lot of dirty, unkempt pets have fleas. But that doesn’t mean that your home is dirty if your pet has fleas. You can have a spotless house and still have fleas.

5.  Flea products will repel fleas, kill all of them in seconds, and you will never see fleas on your pet again if you treat them.

I like to call this the “magic bullet” myth. While I wish I could tell you that there is a product that does all of the above, the reality is that this level of efficiency is impossible. Some flea product repel fleas (eg. Advantix), but the majority of them don’t. Some products kill fleas pretty quickly (eg. Capstar), but even then it takes a few hours to kill all of the fleas on your pet. And even if you are using every single product under the sun on your pet, there is still a good chance you might see a flea from time to time. It takes less than a second for a flea to jump onto your pet as it walks by, so unless you and your pet live in a glass bubble, you will see a flea every now and then.

6. Putting your pets outside will help the problem.

This sounds like a good idea in theory – the pets have the fleas, so put them outside and the fleas will be gone. There is a slight flaw in that thinking – without pets in the house to jump onto, they will choose the next best thing – us! The better option is to apply a good flea control product, and keep the pets inside. As fleas emerge they will jump onto your pets and be killed.

7.  Treating the yard with insecticides should solve the problem.

Adult fleas are the main source of a flea problem. While they make up only 5% of the total flea population, it is the adults who lay eggs and continue the infestation. Only treating the environment might kill the eggs, larvae and pupae, but the adults will keep laying eggs and contaminating the environment. Treating you yard may be helpful, but it is only a small part of the solution.

8.  Once a flea problem is solved you can stop treating your pets.

If your pet has had a flea infestation before, chances are they will have it again. Fleas are present in your yard, neighbourhood, parks… basically anywhere an animal can get to, there will probably be fleas.All it takes is a couple of fleas to jump on and start laying eggs. Two weeks later there are several hundred fleas around and you have to start all over again.

Being informed is one of the best weapons in your flea control arsenal. Hopefully busting these false myths has helped you to understand your flea problem better and given you some ideas to help get rid of them.

To a flea free pet!

Dr. Simon

Photo: PóDeTalco

Technorati Tags: flea control, flea myths, flea treatment, misconceptions

When you are dealing with a flea problem, you need to have things pretty spot on (ha ha get it?). Even the smallest mistakes can end up costing you time, effort, money and flea bites. Here are some of the most common mistakes that people make when using flea control products:

1. Only treating your pet when you see fleas

Flea control is a lot like an iceberg. The fleas you see are only just the tip of the problem. If you only treat when you see fleas then you are going to be treating too infrequently. This will lead to treating your pet too infrequently. If you do this then some fleas will survive long enough to lay eggs and they will be able to continue their life cycle.

2. Only treating the animal who is itchy

Just like some people are more sensitive to mosquito bites, some pets are more sensitive to flea bites. Don’t be fooled into thinking that only the pet who is itchy has fleas. I guarantee you that any pets who live in the same area as the itchy one will have fleas as well.

3. Only treating during the summer time

It is true that fleas are more of a problem in summer than they are in winter. This is because the warm summer temperature means that they can reproduce quickly. And sure, fleas who are outside in the cold winter air may stuggle to survive. But almost every home is heated during the winter period. This means that the temperature inside your house is probably warm enough for fleas to live year round. Not treating during winter means fleas will slowly build up, and once spring hits their population numbers will seem to explode.

4. Stretching the interval between flea treatments

Everyone is tempted to extend their flea treatments just a little longer than the recommended monthly treatment. Flea control products aren’t cheap. Hoping to save a few dollars by spreading things out, sometimes we wait just a bit too long before giving our pet their required treatment. However, as it turns out, you will be costing yourself far more dollars and stress if you leave things too long and you get a breakout of flea infestation.

5. Forgetting a treatment

No one is perfect. Sometimes when we have everything else on our minds, our pet’s monthly dose of flea control manages to slip through the cracks. By the time you remember, it has been 7 weeks since their last flea treatment. Gaps like these allow fleas to complete their life cycle and continue to bother your pet. The easiest fix for this is to set yourself a reminder in your calendar on the first day of every month.

Untreated or infrequently treated pets can be the source of future re-infestations. Fleas that an untreated pet has will lay eggs that can infest any pet, including ones who are treated. Correct, timely application of flea control is essential if you want to win the battle on fleas.

To a flea free pet!

Dr. Simon

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jtyerse/208109946/

Technorati Tags: errors, flea control, flea treatment

How does it work?

Capstar is a fast-acting adulticide which starts working in as little as 30 minutes, and will kill all fleas that are on your pet within around 4 hours. It contains nitenpyram, which blocks the transmission of neural messages in the flea, causing almost instant death. It is an adulticide only, meaning that it doesn’t do anything to kill flea eggs or larvae. Capstar will remain effective for 24-48 hours.

Is it safe?

Capstar is safe fo use with other flea control products, as well as with heartworm prevention, antibiotics, vaccines and deworming medications. It is safe to use in puppies and kittens 4 weeks of age and older, as long as they weigh over 1kg. It is also safe to use in pregnant and nursing dogs and cats.

How to use it

If you are using an insect growth regulator for flea control (like Sentinel Spectrum), sometimes you can still get a flea burden on your pet when conditions promote large numbers of fleas. This doesn’t mean the product isn’t working – insect growth regulators prevent fleas from laying fertile eggs and don’t kill them indirectly. It just means that you need to use another product to kill the adults when they are present in large numbers on your pet. This is where Capstar comes in.

Capstar is generally used along with other flea control products as an integrated approach to flea control. It is commonly given to pets that are on Sentinel Spectrum during the summer period when they are likely to pick up large numbers of fleas, as Sentinel does not kill adult fleas, only flea eggs. In these circumstances it is usually given around once a week.

It is also commonly given to pets with a flea infestation the day before or on the day of starting other flea control products, to kill all of the adult fleas on the pet. This will help to prevent contamination of the environment with flea eggs.

Capstar can also be used as its own as a flea control product. Given every 48 hours, capstar is very effective at preventing flea bites on the pet. The only downside with using Capstar in this manner is that it is quite expensive to do this for a long period of time.

Overall, Capstar is a very safe and effective flea control product. It is generally not suitable to use long term on its own, due to the expense and the inconvenience of giving a tablet every 2 days to your pet. It is however quite good at killing fleas, and this makes it very handy to quickly reduce flea burdens in pets.

To a flea free pet,

Simon

Technorati Tags: capstar, flea control, flea pills, flea treatment

Cats and fleas don’t mix well together. Despite being named after the cat, the cat flea (Ctenocephalides felis) can cause your feline friend no end of grief. If your cat has ever had fleas before, you know how frustrating they can be for both you and your cat. If your cat hasn’t had fleas before, trust me: you don’t ever want them to have the experience.

So, now that we have established that your cat need protection from fleas, you need to decide how exactly you are going to do that. There many options: tablets, flea baths, flea collars, natural flea remedies, flea combs, top spots… the list goes on. However, despite all the numerous options out there, there is only a few that actually work.

Using a good quality top-spot flea control product is probably the easiest way to treat and prevent a flea problem. By good quality I don’t mean the permethrin-based products you can find at the supermarket. These can have serious side effects and can lead to tremoring and seizures. You need to use a product that has undergone extensive testing and has been proven to be safe and effective.

Advantage is one flea control product that fits the bill nicely. Advantage is a veterinarian-only flea medication that comes in a top-spot formula. All you need to do is apply the pre-measured dose from the pipette to the back of your cat’s neck once a month. Within 48 hours it spreads to cover your cat’s entire body through the oily layer of the skin, and will last for an entire month. This means you can spend less time worrying about fleas and enjoy more quality time with your kitty.

Fleas will stop biting within 3-5 minutes of coming in contact with your pet. Advantage kills by contact, meaning that fleas don’t need to bite your cat to be killed. This means that you cat will have less flea bites, which means less irritation and a happier cat.

The active ingredient in Advantage is imidacloprid, which has demonstrated to be very safe for use in dogs and cats. The most common side effect is excess salivation from licking the spot where the product has been applied. This is due to the bitter taste and not a direct tosxic problem from the Advantage. The wide margin of safety means you can use this product without worrying too much about the potential side effects.

If you are looking for a simple and effective solution for treating fleas on your cat, Advantage for cats should be on the top of your list.

Buy advantage for cats here.

To a flea free pet!

Simon

Photo: ven-

Technorati Tags: advantage, flea control, flea remedies, flea treatment

Natural flea control - healthy alternative or potential toxin?

There is a great appeal to “going natural”. After all, natural things have been made by nature and this automatically makes them safer and less damaging to us and our pets, right? While this sounds good in theory, I personally believe that natural treatments are MORE likely to cause toxic problems in your pet, and you are certainly LESS likely to effectively treat your flea problem.

How can this be so?

Firstly, just because a product is “natural” does not mean that it is safe or contains no damaging chemicals.  Deadly nightshade is natural, but I think everyone agrees that it is not something that you or your pets want to come in contact with.

Natural flea control products work for the same reasons that manufactured products work: they are insecticides.  This means they are toxic to fleas, and to some extent, all products that will kill fleas will be toxic to pets at a high enough concentration.  This is true regardless whether the product you are using is natural or not.

The problem with natural flea remedies is that, on the whole, they are not subject to the same rigorous testing as veterinary medications are in order to be registered. Part of the reason why medications cost as much as they do is because of the large amount of testing that companies have to do to prove that their products work and don’t cause any toxic problems.

This testing means that you can use these products on your pet knowing that they have a low level of toxicity.  For example, imidacloprid (the active ingredient in Advtantage and Advocate) has been given at 20 times the recommended dose in puppies with no ill effects.

When you use a natural therapy, it is hard to say with 100% certainty that the dose on the label is what you are giving your pet.  It could be much less or potentially much more.

Here is something worth considering – there is a group of insecticides called pyrethins. Natural pyrethins are produced by plants, the most well known being Chrysanthenum.  There are also synthetic pyrethrins (pyrethroids) that are used for pest control.

The synthetic pyrethins are safer than the natural ones and cause less side effects!

Everyone has their own personal preferences for flea control, and all products used properly and responsibly can be safe. However, registered veterinary flea control products are proven safe and effective by objective studies. In my mind, this makes it a no-brainer. Sure you can use natural products, and they might work, but when you have safe, effective and reasonably priced products available, why bother?

To a flea free pet!

Simon

Technorati Tags: flea control, flea treatment, natural flea control, pyrethrins, pyrethroids, toxic