Because I cover a lot of info in this post, I thought I’d make it easier for you to skip to the parts you’re more interested in by adding some links below!
- External Parasites – Fleas & Ticks
- Fleas & What They Look Like
- How to Prevent Fleas
- How Can I Get Rid of Fleas
- Which Treatment to Use
- What are Ticks?
- What Do Ticks Look Like?
- Where Do They Come From?
- What Do Ticks Do to My Dog?
- How to Get Rid of Ticks
- How to Prevent Ticks
- What Treatment to Use
- Internal Parasites – Worms
External Parasites – Fleas & Ticks
A parasite is something that lives on another animal (the host) and gets its nourishment from the host. If left unchecked, the parasite causes disease or even death.
The most common external parasites found on dogs are fleas and ticks – and they are dangerous and annoying for your dog and the rest of your family!
In this post I will give you some advice on how to get rid of fleas and ticks, what they are, how they affect your dog, and how to prevent them from infesting your poor pooch and home!
What Do Fleas Look Like?
Fleas are very small, brownish black, extremely agile creatures. Excessive scratching and self-biting can be symptoms of flea infestation. Even if no fleas are to be seen the presence of shiny black specks like coal dust (flea poop) is a sure indication of the presence of fleas.
If you dab the specks with a damp piece of cotton wool and if it goes pink it confirms the presence of fleas; these are the remains of a digested blood meal from the host – poor pooch!
Fleas are sometimes compared to head lice, the trouble is that fleas are SO much worse!! They can live off the dog, meaning they will burrow and hide and infest your whole house – even choosing your ankles for a tasty snack too.
Once fleas get into the house it can be a bit of a nightmare to get rid of them. Everything needs to be cleaned and fumigated. Everything. Especially soft furnishings, carpets and bedding – but fleas are also quite happy to live in the cracks of your laminate flooring and other furniture.
They will just sit in the cracks and wait for a juicy morsel like you or your dog to come walking past. They will then leap onto you and have a great meal.
You will be left with itchy red spots, like a rash from an allergic reaction – and the annoying and expensive task of de-fleaing your entire house!
Fleas aren’t fussy and are quite happy to use you, your friends, your cat, birds, rabbits, next doors pets etc as their food host.
How to Prevent Fleas
The best way to avoid fleas is to prevent them taking up residence on your poor dog in the first place. Keep up to date with flea treatments, try and stay away from any other animal that has fleas too – fleas can jump up to 2 foot, making it easy to go from pet to pet.
Fleas like to lay eggs after a tasty meal, a female can lay up to 50 eggs at a time and on average one flea will lay 2000 eggs in its life. Yikes!
Imagine how many eggs could be on your dog at any one time! Fleas like to live, hide, and lay eggs in warm temperatures, so a lovely warm bed or carpet is ideal. This is why you have to treat all of the house and all of your pets if you suspect fleas are about.
A flea can live up to 12 months if the conditions are right for it. A scary statistic from Beaphar (the pet product company) is that if your dog has fleas, it will only host 5% of them, the other 95% is living in your house!!
They are a few different ways you can prevent fleas on your Puppy, which you can buy from shops, online or from the vets.
Here are a few:
- flea powders
- flea shampoos
- flea collars
- flea spot-on treatments
- flea sprays for pets
- flea dips – this one also treats ticks, ringworm & mange
- combing/brushing/grooming – get 10% off your first order & FREE delivery from Bunty Pets using my code: FIRSTORDER
- herbal & natural remedies eg lemongrass, cinnamon
A lot of the flea prevention treatments will kill the fleas, eggs and larvae as well as preventing any fleas from hopping on your precious pooch.
Try to look out for and use these multi-purpose treatments if you can.
How Can I Get Rid of Fleas?
If you do suspect you have an infestation, there are several things you can do to get rid of fleas. The trick is to treat everyone and everything all at the same time, and to keep an eye on it, repeating again a few weeks later if need be.
Here are some of the ways you can get rid of fleas:
- flea powders
- flea shampoos
- flea collars
- flea spot-on treatments
- flea sprays for pets
- flea dips
- combing/brushing/grooming – get 10% off your first order & FREE DELIVERY from Bunty Pets with my offer code: FIRSTORDER
- natural remedies eg lemongrass, cinnamon
- powders & sprays for the home
- flea bombs for the home
- hoover every inch of your home, then get rid of the hoover bag or clean the hoover with hot water and disinfectant
- clean all bedding or soft furnishings on a hot wash
- tumble dry it all – 15 minutes on hot is supposed to kill everything
- use a flea comb daily
- steam clean the house – you can buy handheld cleaners from Amazon
- sprinkle salt or baking soda onto furniture or carpets, leave for 24 hours then hoover it up – it dehydrates the fleas and kills them off
- you could also make a flea trap – put a bowl of warm water and washing up liquid on the floor overnight, the fleas get stuck in the soap and drown.
You can always ask your vet for other tips and ideas – and of course the internet!
Personally, we recommend using medical treatments rather than natural remedies alone, it hasn’t been scientifically proven how effective natural remedies are yet. (Although we have used them in the past and it worked!)
Which Treatment to Use
Which brand or type of treatment depends on you and your dog really. It can be a bit hit and miss. Any puppy from us should be free from skin problems, but like with kids, you can never tell until an allergy happens.
If you know your pup is allergic to something, ask your vet for advice on what kind of treatment to use.
We tend to use the spot-on treatments as they are quick, easier, safe for the dogs and recommended by our vets. You can buy flea treatments from some supermarkets now, pet shops and from your vet.
You can get a flea treatment subscription from Itch Pet, they deliver monthly for FREE so you will never forget to buy the treatment. You can get your first month subscription free using my link here.
In our personal experience over the years, with all different breeds and ages of dogs, the make or brand of treatment hasn’t mattered. There hasn’t been one better than the other that we have found so far. (At time of writing anyway!)
Just do what is best for you and your dog, if that’s a flea collar that’s fine. If it’s a combination of spot-on treatment and medicated flea shampoo to get rid of fleas, that’s fine.
Just double-check that any combinations of treatments are safe to use together.
What are Ticks?
Ticks are parasites like the flea, they attach themselves to other animals to feed on their blood. There is evidence that ticks are also a threat to human health as they can spread Lyme disease.
Lyme disease is caused by serious bacteria, which affects both muscle and nerve cells. It effects humans and dogs.
If incorrectly diagnosed, and even left untreated, Lyme disease can result in an extremely serious debilitating chronic illness with lifelong complications.
While the number of human cases of Lyme disease is rising, unfortunately it’s still a difficult disease to diagnose in dogs, so prevention against ticks is of vital importance.
Typically, dogs may show these symptoms of Lyme disease:
- an initial ‘bullseye’ rash around the tick bite site
- intermittent lameness
- fever
- lethargy
- headaches have been reported in humans
What Do Ticks Look Like?
Ticks can be a pain to get rid of, but also to see! They have eight legs and vary in size from about 1mm to 1cm long. Adult ticks look a bit like small spiders.
Ticks are generally oval, flat and small: the size of a sesame seed when unfed, but once completely engorged with blood, they are as big as a coffee bean.
They are usually whiteish in colour but get darker as they drink more blood. When on your dog they look and feel like small warts or bumps.
Where Do They Come From?
Ticks are a nightmare. They tend to live outdoors, in trees, grass and similar places. This is why a lot of people advise you to check your dog for ticks after every walk – especially if the walk was in grass.
Ticks don’t jump like fleas, or fly, but they crawl super quickly! They will lurk in grass and wait for your unsuspecting dog to walk past and then make a run for them. They can latch on to your dog for days, laying eggs while they feed from your dog’s blood.
Ticks and fleas thrive in warmer weather and usually cause more problems in Summer but can live and attach themselves all year round! So, it’s best to use prevention treatment all year round.
What Do Ticks Do to My Dog?
A tick will burrow into your dog’s skin. It will force its way into the skin, chewing through it to get a direct line to the blood. Also making it difficult to remove. You want to get rid of ticks as soon as you can.
It will make your dog itch like crazy and be painful for them.
Ticks are known for heading for warmer areas on your dog to hide, feed and lay eggs. Check armpits, head, ears, the groin, between toes and on their bellies very carefully and you may spot them.
If your dog keeps shaking it’s head a lot, you might find a tick hiding in the ear.
It can be hard to spot a tick, they do grow when they eat which is quite gross but makes it a little easier to see them. (It will be harder to spot them on long-haired or dark-haired dogs.)
Like fleas, ticks are happy to live on us humans and other animals too. these blood-sucking creatures aren’t fussy either. So, if you spot a tick on your dog or suspect a tick, check yourself over too – just in case!
Ticks will live happily on dogs, cats, sheep, hedgehogs, foxes, badgers, us and basically anything with blood in it!
How to Get Rid of Ticks
If you see a tick, don’t try and remove it by hand. Go to the vets and get them to remove it for you.
Ticks carry diseases from animal to animal and can also pass them to humans too. The last thing you want is to make the tick burrow deeper into your pet or choose your arm instead!
If you have dealt with ticks before, you know that you can sometimes get them off with tweezers or special tick removing tools.
The difficulty is, if a tick is pulled by something it usually loses its body, leaving the head inside the skin – but you will think you have removed it all. This is when the real dangers from infections and diseases can happen.
The tick can sick up its food and any infections it is carrying, causing more harm to your dog (or yourself). Yuk!
If you want to remove the tick yourself, use tweezers and try and grab the tick head – not the body. Pull it out firmly (but slowly) because they have a good grip! Don’t twist the tick as you pull it out, this can make the body come off and head stay in the skin.
Once the tick has gone, check your dog over slowly and carefully for any more. Then just keep an eye on the place the tick was, the skin might get inflamed, itchy, or swollen.
If anything happens to the area where the tick was removed, like a rash or infection, go to your vets asap for some treatment.
It may be the rash just has to die down over a couple of days, but your dog may have an allergic reaction to the tick’s saliva and become poorly. Remember, the tick can also sick up their food into your dog, along with any diseases they are carrying!!
Below is a video by the Blue Cross animal charity, showing you how to remove ticks from your dog, using these Tick Remover Tweezers.
How to Prevent Ticks
Like flea treatments, there is a range of tick prevention treatments available in supermarkets, pet shops and from your vet. A lot of the treatments are aimed at getting or preventing both fleas and ticks – making it less medication for your dog and easier for you.
Some types of prevention treatment are:
- powders
- sprays
- tick collars
- spot-on treatments like Frontline
- flea & tick shampoo
- brushing/combing/grooming
- insect repellents – before a walk, spray on your clothes, not the dog! – we use this kid’s mosquito repellent
- natural remedies
- do a tick check – check your dog after every walk
- cover yourself when on a country walk – tuck trousers into socks, wear long sleeves etc
- remove outside clothes before going in the house
- carry a tick removal tool or tweezers when on a walk (and anti-bacterial wipes)
- stay away from areas you know have had ticks
- make sure the grass and planting in your garden is cut back and dropped leaves are removed from your garden
- steam clean the house
- sprinkle salt or baking soda onto furniture or carpets, leave for 24 hours then hoover it up – it may dehydrate the ticks and kills them off
- flea bombs for the home
- hoover every inch of your home, then get rid of the hoover bag or clean the hoover with hot water and disinfectant
- You can always ask your vet for other tips and ideas – and of course the internet!
- Personally, we recommend using medical treatments rather than natural remedies alone, it hasn’t been proven how effective natural remedies are yet.
Ticks don’t usually survive in the house; they dry out and die. Ticks indoors tend to be quite rare, even though they do like warm conditions. But if you spot a tick on your dog, we recommend you treat the bedding, toys, grooming accessories, and house too – just as you would for fleas.
Studies have shown that ticks can live through a washing machine cycle and even some time in a hot tumble dryer!! So don’t think that will work with these annoying creatures!
What Treatment to Use
We prefer to use the spot-on treatments; we usually use one that prevents and kills fleas and ticks. It’s simpler for us and the dogs and we know they are covered for both then. Our vet also recommends the duo spot-on treatments.
Which brand or type of treatment depends on you and your dog really. It can be a bit hit and miss. Any puppy from us should be free from skin problems, but like with kids, you can never tell until an allergy happens.
If you know your pup is allergic to something, ask your vet for advice on what kind of treatment to use.
In our personal experience over the years, with all different breeds and ages of dogs, the make or brand of treatment hasn’t mattered. There hasn’t been one better than the other that we have found so far. (At time of writing anyway!)
You can get a flea & tick treatment subscription from Itch Pet, they deliver monthly for FREE so you will never forget to buy the treatment. You can get your first month subscription free using my link here.
Just do what is best for you and your dog, if that’s a flea/tick collar that’s fine. If it’s a combination of spot-on treatment and medicated tick shampoo that’s fine.
Just double-check that any combinations of treatments are safe to use together.
Now You Know About Fleas & Ticks…
As you can tell if you have read through all the information above, ticks and fleas are a complete nuisance and can be dangerous! Its so much easier to prevent rather than cure!
Ticks, fleas and worms are all nasty creatures that cause your dog (and family!) harm – keep them at bay and keep your dog treated!
We treat our dogs monthly for worms, fleas and ticks – as our vet recommends. We suggest you do the same.
So now you know about fleas & ticks, what about worms? Why not have a look at our other post about why you should worm your dog.
