Dog fleas are the parasites that live on the dog's skin. They cause diseases to the dog and skin irritation.
Causes for dog fleas:
Association with other dogs which have fleas.
They can be acquired from unclean surroundings.
Preventing your dog from acquiring the fleas:
Keep your dog away from the stray dogs and other animals like cats, rabbits, rodents etc as these fleas can live on them too.
If there are other pets at home that has fleas then make sure that your dog stays away from them. As these fleas can jump from them onto your dog.
Never let your dog go to a dog house infested with fleas as there is a chance your dog might get infested too.
Treatment:
Topical flea solutions or oral pills can help your dog get rid of fleas. The topical solution should be applied on the neck of the dog directly on the skin. These medications will be easily available at ant vet store. Two best brands are the frontline and advantage. Frontline can kill ticks too in addition to the fleas and also it is water proof hence expensive than advantage.
Treat your dog with frontline for 3 weeks but not more than that as the fleas get resistant with the drug. This happen when 1 mutant immune flea mates with another one then all the eggs become resistant to the drug. If this is the case then Promeris should be used. This has an ingredient that is different that will kill all the fleas.
Another best option for treating dog fleas is Capstar. It has the potential to kill all fleas in 30 minutes but only lasts for 1 day. It should be given daily once.
Each female flea has been known to drop 30 eggs a day! Most of those eggs fall into your carpet. To kill the flea eggs in the carpet you can buy Borax found down any laundry isle. Before vacuuming, sprinkle a moderate amount into your carpet and scuff it in with your feet to scratch up the existing eggs so they will be unable to hatch. Flea dips and flea shampoos do not work. They are the old fashioned method of flea control. The modern day consensus is that their chemical solutions can cause more harm than good.
