Killing Fleas Without Killing Yourself Or Your Dog

Fleas can cause major problems for you and your dog. In fact, a bad flea infestation can put your dog in the hospital with anemia from so many flea bites. Fleas will bite you, too. This is not a good situation.

Flea Life Cycle

To treat an infestation of fleas, you need to know a little bit about their life cycle. Adult female fleas must have a ‘blood meal’, usually from a dog or cat, but occasionally from a human, before their eggs are fertile. An adult flea can lay as many as forty eggs a day each day of her life. That adds up to a lot more fleas.

The eggs fall off the dog and land in your yard, your house, and any place else the dog goes. The eggs hatch into larvae and then pupate. To pupate, they form a cocoon around themselves. This cocoon shields the flea from pesticides that may be applied to kill it. The flea can lay dormant for months before something in the environment-heat, carbon dioxide from a dog’s breath, or light-causes them to hatch. Instant flea infestation.

Treating The Infestation On Your Dog

The best way to deal with a flea infestation is to deprive the fleas of their blood meal. If your dog has fleas, you need three things to fight the fleas: a flea comb, flea shampoo, and flea preventative. With the flea comb, you need to comb the dog from head to tail. Periodically, dunk the comb in hot, soapy water to kill the fleas and eggs that it combs out of the dog’s coat. As soon as you finish combing the dog and removing as many fleas as possible, give the dog a bath with the flea soap. Carefully follow the direction on the shampoo label to kill as many fleas as possible. Next, dry the dog off and when he is completely dry, use a topical or oral anti-flea product.

Using one of the topical or oral anti-flea products means that any time a flea tries to get its blood meal from the dog, the flea is killed. Dead fleas are fleas that are not harming your dog. You put the topical flea treatment between the shoulder blades on your dog. The oral flea treatments are pills that are given to the dog once a month for protection against fleas. You should talk to your veterinarian about which flea preventative is best for your dog. Be sure and use this preventative year around. If you skip a month, you can get another flea infestation.

Treating The House

If you dog has fleas, you have fleas in your house. To kill them, sprinkle food-grade diatomaceous earth (a talc-like powder containing silica and fossilized marine phytoplankton) all over the house. You should especially treat carpet, bedding, and any place the dog has been such as the couch or a favorite chair. Then vacuum the powder, and the dead fleas, up. Be sure to change the vacuum bag when you are done vacuuming and dispose of the bag in a sealed trash bag.

Strip all of your beds and wash your bed linens in the washer and then dry them on the “Hot” setting. Fleas cannot tolerate the “Hot” cycle in the dryer. Be sure and wash all dog bedding, toys, and other things the dog has played with or slept on.

Treating The Yard

Fleas like moist places, so do not overwater your yard. Do not use mulches such as grass clippings that hold in the moisture, either. Use things that naturally repel fleas, such as cedar chips as mulch and for pathways in the yard.

A pest-control professional can treat your yard with plant derived insecticide that will kill ticks and fleas but will not harm dogs and humans. Costs vary and are based on how large an area you are having treated.