Been finding some fleas on my dog. What do I do now!?

Do I have to do anything about my home? Please tell me I'm not going to need to have a tent placed over my home, and have it fumagated for weeks on end.

 

If you are not treating with a good preventative, START NOW!!! Not the generic fipronil that you can find at Walmart these days (that stuff has lost a lot of its effectiveness), but something like what's pictured above.

If you are already treating with something like that, you may need to treat your yard. The preventative only kills fleas that bite your dog, so it will do nothing to stop the ones in your yard from hopping onto your dog and catching a ride inside. They will die after they bite your dog, but if your yard is a breeding ground, there will always be plenty more to hop right back on every time your dog goes outside.

Flea powder...

They are in your home, but the good news is that if you are diligent about treating your dog, after a couple months those fleas will die off. You yard may need to be treated though.

There are also flea bombs that only require you to be out for a day, and don't require that you tent your house or pay someone else to do it.

I just had Petsmart apply some K9 Advantix on her.
So should I go ahead and flea bomb my house now? Or should I wait and see if my dog gets more fleas after a few weeks? I'm still finding some now.


 


I actually found one in my bed.





Now when you say, you need to be out for a day... do you mean a 24hour period? Or like 8-16 hours?
 



Also... do I really need to treat my yard? I have no grass.... I live in AZ and temperatures are reaching 107 degrees outside. Will fleas survive outside? Some guy at Petsmart told me that fleas are actually *VERY* rare in AZ. Asked if I had any new renters move in recently (I have.)

I've learned a lot about fleas, the hard way unfortunately. I had a bad infestation from some boarding cats, then an even worse infestation from an adopted barn cat (the second time around required flea bombing the condo twice). The bottom line is that removing a flea infestation is not easy. By the time you find them it is usually too late to expect the situation to be remedied simply by washing and treating the dog once.

The problem is that fleas lay eggs and the eggs are tough to completely eliminate. So you have to kill them after they hatch. This takes you down a road where you are literally vacuuming every day, washing a lot of stuff once a week, and treating a lot of stuff with chemicals once a week, usually for a period of 2 to 4 weeks depending on how severe the flea infestation is. Read this simple explanation (both pages).

Wash all of your pets. Treat all of your pets (Advantix, etc.) Wash/treat all of the pet bedding, carpets, couches and where ever else they lay. Vacuum like crazy. Monitor your pets carefully for fleas--use a flea comb and visual inspection, look for flea "dirt" on them (flea excrement). Repeat once a week until you see no sign of fleas for 2 weeks. If this continues to fail after a few weeks then it's time to bomb the house. Just follow the directions on the flea "bomb" packaging. Because of the flea life cycle, multiple "bombing" over a period of weeks may be necessary.

By the way, even though it is only one flea among thousands, it is immensely satisfying to comb out a flea and then crush the stupid thing with the back edge of the flea comb. However you have to be really quick about it because it will jump away, and they are surprising tough to squish.

In the future keep all of your pets on a flea/tick preventative.

^ What he said on the flea bombs.

I'd say that you're probably dealing with a mid grade infestation. Keep flea medicine on your dog. It needs reapplied every month. As said above, wash all bedding (yours and your dogs), and vacuum like crazy. Carpets, furniture, baseboards, pillows, etc.

If you notice that you are still having problems after a couple months, look at a flea bomb and/or treating the yard.

Diatomaceous earth. On the pet, in the carpet & dog bedding (launder all your own, along with curtains/drapes), and in the yard. Vacuum it up a couple days later (indoors only, obviously) and reapply if necessary. Fleas are a real bitch to get rid of, my cats get ticks during the wetter parts of the year but somehow have never had a flea on them. I'll take ticks any day.

These actually look a lot like ticks, how do I know the difference?

Just looked up ticks... I'm more inclined now to believe my dog had ticks, not fleas.



The other day, I found a, bean shaped object stuck in her fur. When I picked it out, it felt kind of squishy, like it was filled with pus or something nasty (likely blood?) Anyways, it resembled this....

Ticks, even the nymphs, are a lot bigger than fleas. Ticks also generally attach themselves in the head/neck/shoulders area because of the number of blood vessels close to the skin.

ETA yep, those are ticks. Something like Frontline or K9Advantix will keep them from sucking blood for very long. I just check my cats a few times a day and remove any ticks I find, there are really only about 4 months per year when I see any number of them.

Yup. Those are ticks.



Advantix will treat for those too.

Are ticks less of a concern when it comes to house infestation than Fleas?

I'm a vet in AZ.  I have seen 2 cases of fleas in dogs here in 7 years so it's pretty uncommon.  I suspect up in north AZ or in stray animals it may be more common.  I suspect you did have ticks.  You are probably going to need to treat the yard for the ticks assuming that's where your dogs got them.

scratch him.

What part of AZ?





Also.... do ticks tend to infest the home, or mostly stay outside except when they get on the dog?



 

Ticks don't infest the home like fleas do, but keep an eye out for any engorged ones that fall off the dog. They will eventually lay eggs, but a carpet isn't a very hospitable environment for them. Get them off the dog ASAP and you won't have any problems. Even up here where there are millions and millions of ticks, I've never had any in my apartment that didn't come in on me or one of the cats.

Ticks don't infest the home, partly because they are bigger and easier to see than flees, and also they are less energetic about finding a new host.  They mostly sit on branches with their arms out waiting for a warm blooded creature to brush up on them and then they hang on.  Fleas, on the other hand, have a super-long jump which they use to fling themselves toward whatever warm blooded creature they sense.









































































 

BUMP.

There's a new one out called "Bravecto" and my dog is on it.  It's $65 a pill at the vet, but provides protection from FLEAS and TICKS for up to 12 weeks (Lone Star ticks up to 8 weeks).
We had been using Comfortis, but it's good for fleas only, and Madison cannot have anything topical put on her due to her skin issues.

We've had no S/E.

All great info here. Also you need to treat your yard as well. Clean up all dog crap and get some granule type spread for the yard. Some even come in a liquid form to attach to the hose. You want to almost overdo this.

You've got to stay on top of this for awhile or the fleas will come back big time. It will not be cheap.

My vet likes Comfortis combined with Capstar if necessary.

Advantage II FTW.