Stop the Fleas..

Currently my dogs do not have fleas. I treat them monthly year round, unlike some people who do this only durning the summer months. My sister has three dogs, who recently acquired fleas. First she tried Pet Armor, it worked for a few days, but the fleas returned and I suggested Frontline Plus, which I use, which only lasted slightly longer. Calling the vet she was told to treat her home as well as her pets, even though there was no evidence of fleas in her home, she did, it didn't help. Are fleas becoming resistant to certain products or are there other products she should try?

 

The trick to getting rid of fleas is to break their reproduction cycle. This means that you have to do more than just apply something to your dogs or give them something to eat to stop the fleas. You also need to general area with some kind of anti-flea washing solution.

 

I believe she has bombed with a flea spray and treated her doggies at the sometimes. I will double check with her though. Thanks for the pointers!

 

It's actually quite a long drawn-out process to get rid of all the fleas. There will always be one or two very tough fleas which might survive the first attack and live to produce another generation of fleas. So the flea-cleaning procedure must be repeated a couple of times, at least.

Just to give an idea of the size of the task, consider this. The life cycle of the flea is about two to three weeks. Just one female flea can produce about 4,000 eggs. Fleas can live for several months without food.

 

Spoke to my sister and passed on the advice. She will be taking your tips and repeating the process two times in the next two weeks. I'll keep you posted. And many thanks!

 

I hope she will succeed in bringing the flea population down to manageable levels. Tell her not to expect zero population. That's impossible to achieve. She should be happy if she really have to search very hard to find a flea on her dog.