Winter is the Best Time to Fight Fleas

By Linda Cole

Fleas are nasty little critters that think nothing of hitching a ride on our pets or on us anywhere in our homes. One or two fleas may not seem like a problem, but it only takes a few to morph into a serious infestation in a matter of weeks. Winter is the best time to attack and mount a counter offensive against this invading pest that can be hard to find and even harder to eliminate. The first line of defense begins by understanding the life cycle of fleas.

Just because you don’t find fleas on your pet, doesn’t mean you don’t have a flea problem. That’s because adult fleas spend most of their time in your home rather than on your pet. Our pets are nothing more than a meal ticket and a place to lay eggs or hitch a ride. The female flea will lay eggs anywhere in the home, not just on your dog or cat. Not only are fleas a biting terror, some have tapeworm eggs which can infect your pet.

The perfect temperature for the flea life cycle is between 70 and 85 degrees and 70% humidity. Winter is the best time to attack fleas because lower humidity levels can slow their development down. They are still in the environment, but less active. If you have a flea infestation in your home, only 5% are adult fleas. The real problem is the remaining population made up of 50% eggs, 30% larvae and 15% pupae.

The flea life cycle begins with the egg

An adult female flea can lay up to 50 eggs per day. Eggs that have been laid on your pet will drop off onto carpets, furniture, our beds, your pet’s bedding, along baseboards and cracks in wood flooring. Winter is the best time to attack a flea infestation because under ideal conditions, the tiny white eggs will hatch in about 2 days up to a couple of weeks. The dry heat from our furnaces slows the process and gives you more time to move furniture and do a deep cleaning of carpets, furniture and along the floor before the eggs move to the second stage.

The second stage of the flea life cycle: larvae

At this stage, they can move using tiny hairs that are attached to the larvae. They will go through three transformations as larvae and eat the feces of adult fleas (dried blood), organic material they find in carpets, bedding and outside in the soil. This stage will last 5 to 18 days and can be longer depending on weather conditions. The larvae will then spin a cocoon and move into the next stage.

The third stage of the flea life cycle: pupae

This is the last stage before fleas become adults. The flea will stay in this stage anywhere from 3 or 5 days up to a year or more if necessary. At this point, they are only waiting for the right conditions to emerge into adult biting pests.

Being aware of the life cycle of fleas helps to understand why winter is the ideal season to fight these nasty pests. First of all, it’s important to continue treating your pets with flea control throughout the winter months. The next step is to begin an aggressive cleaning offensive. Vacuuming daily will help pick up fleas in all four stages. Add a flea collar or spray flea control directly into the bag to kill any fleas you picked up and immediately remove the vacuum bag when you are finished. If you leave the bag in the vacuum, any fleas that hatch and are not affected by the flea collar or spray will have a chance to escape and start their own egg laying. Don’t forget to vacuum all of the furniture as well as along the baseboards and under the furniture.

To help break the life cycle of fleas, wash all bedding, removable furniture coverings and clothing your pet may have been on. For severe infestation, winter is the best time to attack fleas with a visit from your local pest control company. Foggers can also be used, but make sure to follow all of the instructions, warnings and cautions if using foggers.

Winter is the best time to combat fleas because you have a fighting chance of getting a handle on any infestations you may have. Unfortunately, you could have millions of fleas in your home in one stage of development or another, and dealing with them is an ongoing battle. But if you take advantage of the flea’s slower development during the winter months, you may be able to break the life cycle of the flea. It may take some time, but with proper flea control and dedicated cleaning practices, it is a battle you can win.

Read more articles by Linda Cole

Best flea treatment for dogs

If you have a dog that seems to be suffering from flea infestation – be quick. The sooner you rid your dog of fleas, the better, both for you and for your pet. In this article you will find everything you need to know to combat these parasites. 

SYMPTOMS

If your dog scratches itself excessively, bites its rear, tail end or thighs, loses hair, has skin lesions and/or red bumps and, on top of that, you find flea excrement (tiny black fecal matter; if you add water to it and smear it using toilet paper it gets red in colour) – there’s a pretty good chance that your dog has been infested with fleas. Don’t hesitate to act; flea infestation may have a bad influence on the health of your pet. Apart from the obvious discomfort, many animals suffer from FAD, i. e., Flea Allergic Dermatitis, which can be tough on your dog.

TREATMENT

How do you get about treating your pet, then? Well, first and foremost, remember that chemicals are the last resort.

Whether you need to rid your pet of fleas or just use it as a precaution, flea shampoo for dogs is definitely a good idea. There are, however, several things you must keep in mind when buying one. 

As you will invariably notice, there’s a difference between what you can apply to an adult dog, and what product you should apply to a puppy. You will find both puppy shampoos and dog shampoos. Before picking one, you had better consult a vet and their opinion on your pet’s immune system. Some shampoos could be extremely dangerous (even lethal) for puppies. 

This website is devoted to the flea treatment for dogs. The article below deals with the problem of fleas on cats, which could be of interest to dog-and-cat owners. Similar though they sometimes may seem, CATS ARE NOT DOGS and therefore need a different kind of treatment. What’s more, it is often the case that applying dog treatment to cats may actually harm them (and vice versa).
There is a variety of reasons for this. Because of their metabolism, grooming habits and, very often, smaller size, cats need different types of flea treatment. What works well for dogs may have, and often indeed has, dire consequences for our feline pets; cats are in general more susceptible to any toxic products and react strongly against them.

Many wonder what the big problem about the flea removal is. After all, once you realise there are fleas in your house and on your dog, you just buy some nice flea bomb and use it, wash your dog in some anti-flea shampoo and the problem’s done with.

Well, don’t be so hasty. If you act this way, you are quite sure to have your house and pet re-infested with these pesky creatures. Why?

Firstly, you did not make sure you actually got rid of all the fleas, both the adult ones and the larvae. Fleas have different developmental stages and therefore different substances are needed to kill adult fleas and, say, eggs. Even if you wipe out all the adult fleas in your house, fleas will soon reappear.

First and foremost, make sure you get rid of all the flea eggs. This you will achieve by thoroughly washing carpets and bedding with a strong detergent and vacuuming the entire house. Also, try to dehumidify your house, eg. by turning on air conditioning. To kill larvae, you could wash carpets with an insecticide, or have them steam-washed.

Although is is generally argued that natural methods are better, they may sometimes fail. Then you must resort to what some call “toxic methods”. Don’t be too upset, however. Most non-natural products on the market are there for you to use – you just have to make 100% sure that you have read and understood the recommendations and, better still, consulted a reliable vet. The thing is, toxic products may have a detrimental impact not only on your flowerbed but also may pose a threat to your dog’s health and life, and even your family’s. Better safe than sorry, they say, and in this case this saying  hits the nail on the head.

Now that you have decided that there’s absolutely no other other way for you to approach the flea problem apart from applying some monstrous toxic methods of flea extermination, you can have a quick look at our list of – if used properly – safe products.

Frontline Plus for dogs is among the most popular preventatives. It kills all existing adult fleas on your pet within 12 hours and all ticks and chewing lice within 48 hours. One application ensures a full month protection.  Another advantage of Frontline is that it’s waterproof, which is great for water-loving dogs (you still need to keep your dog away from water for the application to become dry, which usually takes about 24 hours). You need to remember that it must not be applied to pets younger than 8 weeks!

Fleas are potential illness bringers. However, sickness doesn’t have to be connected with parasites, which may make it more difficult for you to notice that something’s up with your pet. To make things more tricky, it’s in animals’ nature to deny the fact that they’re under the weather (to mislead any predators). It’s up to the owners to be alert enough to notice any illness symptoms.

It is fairly simple to notice flea infestation on your dog. What is more, once you get about it and are conscientious, it is fairly easy to get rid of it, too. However, there are other different parasites your pet may be infested with, which can lead to severe health problems and which, alas, are not that easily noticeable.

One of such parasites is heartworm. It is transmitted by parasites and, once it has invaded a pet’s body, it may take it up to two years before any symptoms are visible. To make things worse, over the first six months no symptoms whatsoever are detectable, even in the vet’s lab. Most often, the larvae settles in the heart and only once it has matured will any signs be noticeable. If, although rarely, the larvae end up in unusual areas, such as the eye, brain, or an artery in the leg, different results may be spotted, eg. blindness, seizures or lameness.

Best Heartworm/Flea Preventatives?

Krissy, a veterinary student at UC Davis, sent me this question last week.


Thanks again for your insight on your blog, I really enjoy reading. Today we had a rep (a vet) from Bayer (the company that sells advantage) and they said there was this study and that only THEIR heart worm/flea preventative (Advantage Multi) was the only one that prevented heart worm in 8 out of 8 dogs. Very interesting, you can see the info just released this past month.
http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/Veterinary+news/Leading-parasitologist-reveals-heartworm-preventiv/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/703785?contextCategoryId=40534
I understand this is a very small data sample, but of course they wanted to have to infect and kill as few dogs as possible. I also know that different products are better than others depending on the situation, like some permethrin tick preventatives are toxic to cats. I think it is difficult as a consumer to understand which product is the best on the market and most cost effective (in this economy). I have found some info on the internet, and in a clinic I worked in previously we primarily used Frontline and Revolution. But I was wondering if you would share your personal thoughts on this topic. If you would like of course! 

Krissy, you’ll find that this is a complicated topic, and every pharmaceutical company can present hard data on why THEIR product is better than their competitors.  So you can’t completely go by what the reps say, as their job is to convince you to use their product over all of the others.  That doesn’t mean that they’re wrong or deceptive.  You just have to understand their perspective and reasons for communicating.

I wasn’t familiar with the data in the article so it was an interesting read.  I am very familiar with Dr. Blagburn, and have heard him lecture several times as well as have spoken to him personally at a conference.  I have a lot of respect for his opinions and research, and overall trust his judgment.  However, besides the small sample size remember that this was also a laboratory setting.  Real-world data may be different.  So while Advantage Multi may be a good product, I wouldn’t use this one study to prove that it’s the best product on the market.  Lastly, one of the problems facing parasitologists is the increasing data showing likely resistance of certain populations of heartworms to current preventatives.  I foresee this being a big problem within a decade or so.

Now you asked my opinion, and I’m happy to give it.  But remember that this is my personal opinion.  Yes, it’s based on all of the data I’ve come across, as well as lectures by Dr. Blagburn and others, personal experience, and information gleaned from journal articles.  I certainly don’t consider myself an expert in this area, and I’m sure my views can be contested by others.

Heartworm prevention:  Personally I really like Proheart.  Studies have shown that it’s just as safe as any other prevention on the market, and it’s had limited enough use that I’d be surprised at any resistance.  What I really like is the fact that it’s not dependent on the client remembering to give a pill or apply a product every month.  Twice annual injections (once annual in some countries) and you’re covered.  I still think the ivermectin-based preventions (Heartgard, Iverhart, etc.) are effective for most pets.  I worry that topical products like Advantage Multi and Revolution can be made less effective by frequent bathing and other factors, though admittedly those are not going to be common situations.  I haven’t seen evidence that one prevention completely overwhelms the others.  In my practice we use Proheart 6, Revolution, and an oral ivermectin preventative.


Flea prevention:  There are a lot of strong opinions on this topic.  For my first choices I really like Comfortis and Vectra (sold under the brand FirstShield at Banfield Pet Hospitals….same product, different names), each for different reasons.  My views are based on discussions with Dr. Blagburn (and some pointed questions to him a few years ago) and local dermatology specialists.  I think that the Bayer products (Advantage, K9 Advantix) are still good and I do think they are worthwhile choices.  I haven’t been a fan of Frontline for many years.  I also don’t like Program/Sentinel, as it doesn’t actually kill fleas.

Krissy, I hope this answers your questions.  As flea season is beginning soon, this is a good reminder of the importance of these products.

What is the best home remedy for killing fleas on dogs?

My dog has a large amout of fleas that I can not get rid of using over the counter products. I need a home remedy that works very well. I can not afford to take him to the vet.