Fleas can pose a serious problem to your pet’s health.
Fleas are small dark brown wingless insects. A flea has strong back legs which enable it to jump from host to host or from the environment to host.
3 Things You Need To Know About Fleas
1) There are over 2,500 different types of fleas in the world. The most common is the Ctenocephalides felis, or cat flea. These cat fleas have been known to also bite dogs and humans too.
2) Fleas multiply quickly and spread at an alarming rate. It is crucial to handle flea problems as soon as you notice it.
How to spot fleas on your pet?
a) Use a FLEA COMB instead of a regularly brush.
b) If your pet is SCRATCHING a lot, it might be a sign he/she has fleas.
c) If you can spot FLEA DIRT on your pet’s skin and fur coat. Flea dirt looks like black pepper or small dark specks of dirt.
3) A flea bite is a discomfort for your pet. It can cause several health issues such as
a) Allergies: Your pet can develop a skin allergy from a flea bite.
b) Tapeworms: There’s a possibility your pet can accidentally swallow a flea. One way is when your pet licks or chews at a flea bite area. It’s dangerous if that flea is a host to a tapeworm egg as it will grow in your pet’s intestines. For proper tapeworm treatment and medication, see your veterinarian immediately.
c) Anemia: Your pet could become anemic due to fleas feeding off his/her blood supply.
2 Ways to Prevent Fleas
1) As a Pet Parent, be Proactive and Educate yourself about fleas. It is important that you know how to detect fleas and understand a Flea Life Cycle. Don’t wait until you see an adult flea, stage four of Flea Life Cycle, wherein a flea finds a host and begins its feeding process.
Seresto Collar: 2014 Better Homes and Gardens: Best New Product Award
2) Use a Preventive Product for fleas. For the past months, Sugar has been wearing the Seresto collar. The Seresto collar has a release technology which promises to deliver an 8 month protection from fleas. To learn more about Seresto Collar and other products of Bayer, we invite you to check PetParents.com. Sign-up and save $20 on Seresto.
Fleas are active any time of year, so year-round prevention is essential.
Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Bayer/Seresto and the Pet Blogger Network. I am being compensated for helping spread the word about Seresto product but Golden Woofs only shares information we feel is relevant to our readers. Bayer/Seresto is not responsible for the content of this article.
The BEST thing about Seresto is that there is no Stinky GREASY places on our backs. We hate that. Our Seresto Collars are working very well.
PeeS… if you think that you have found some FLEA DIRT… you can test it very easly.
Put a small drop of water on some WHITE paper.. and put the Possible Flea Dirt (flea poop) in the wet area… It it turns RED… it IS Flea Dirt…
So glad to hear that your Seresto collar is working well. Please continue to keep us posted. Golden Thanks for your flea dirt test suggestion.
We’ve been lucky with fleas here in AZ – we’ve only had two sightings of them on pups in all these years. We treated the pups immediately, vacuumed and washed all the bedding and never had an issue. We’ve heard of other folks who’ve had severe infestations. Knock on wood!
Monty and Harlow
Great, informative post! We saw an ad for Seresto at our vet yesterday.
We hope to never have any fleas around here. Not sure about wearing the collar thing. I hear they work well, but wish it was a tag thing and not an entire collar.
Great post! Miley had fleas once and of course she had a horrible reaction to them! Yuck!!!
Since Arty is allergic to fleas, we make sure to keep them on preventatives all year round!!
Another great post!
Smileys!
Dory, Jakey, Arty & Bilbo
Flea allergy is no FUN! All year round protection is a MUST!
thanks for a great post, Sugar. the fleas are very aggressive this year, no idea why. and they have such bad aftereffect like allergies and bad ouchies. seems not even the fleas are still the same. have a golden friday!
Morning Sugar…
I get my flea protection applied the first of every month. We have to use it year around here because of the hot humid weather.
Hugs madi your bfff
Coco our cat got infested badly this year after our usual flea treatment didn’t work, the vet said the fleas had built up an immmunity to it that was after selling it to us, so we changed brand and sprayed the whole house and everything seems to be back to normal now.
Sheba.
Oh those fleas are evil little ones!
This is a great alternative for when Ma runs out of my oral flea stuffs..plus it last 8 months!!! That’s pretty good!!
Ma printed out the rebate and is gonna order me one! Thanks Sugar!
Kisses,
Ruby ♥
Yes, it’s super cool that it last for 8 months. Let us know if you decide to use the Seresto collar.
OMD we did not know a lot about fleas but she says thank dog i have my treatment regularly. Have a fabulous Friday.
Best wishes Molly
Those fleas could be very dangerous. We sure are glad we don’t have those bugs
Lily & Edward
Fleas are certainly nasty little buggers!!!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
Fleas are certainly gross – thanks for the additional information.
Hi Y’all!
My Human stopped using collars for fleas years ago because her Flatcoat always started throwing up within 24 hours. The vet started her using Frontline on him. It was fairly new then. I used something else for awhile but am back on Frontline plus Heartworm. The vet is going to switch me to a pill for fleas next season; I’ll still need the Heartworm pill. Here is the southeast flea and heartworm treatments are year round.
Y’all come by now,
Hawk aka BrownDog
We’ve been pretty lucky these past several years. Sephi and Maya have never had fleas. Pierson had them when we first got him, but we took care of that quickly and never saw them again. My dogs occasionally get Frontline in the summer, but other than that we don’t use flea prevention. I didn’t use anything on them this summer.
Fleas suck and take over your house in no time. Rid the world of fleas.
I have battled fleas for years! I have wasted so much money on products out there that really don’t work.