Protect Your Dog From Fleas And Ticks

Many pet owners know how much of a pain it can be to try to deal with fleas and ticks on pets. Fleas can be especially troublesome on dogs. It is very easy for an animal to bring fleas or ticks into an environment, but getting rid of them can be quite a challenge. Fleas and ticks can show up on a person's pet any time of the year, barring any months where the temperatures are below freezing for long periods of time.

How does an animal get fleas? Well, it's quite simple. A dog can get fleas from pretty much anywhere outside. Fleas can live on pretty much any animal with fur, from dogs, to cats, to raccoons, squirrels, and a host of other wild creatures. If any animal with fleas happens to run through a person's yard, even if just for a moment, the fleas can lay eggs which will hatch in a person's yard, giving the fleas an opportunity to attach themselves to a person's pet. Once attached, the fleas start to breed. Similar to fleas, ticks attach to animals by simply waiting for the opportunity. They don't hang out on other animals like fleas, however. Ticks lie dormant in tall grass until an animal or person walks by, then the tick attaches to the person or animal, causing problems.

Fleas and ticks cause a variety of problems, from what a person may consider a slight annoyance, all the way up to significant disease. The most common side effects of a dog having a flea problem is the tendency for the dog to constantly scratch. Fleas bite and inject their saliva into skin, causing dermatitis. This dermatitis causes the animal to bite and scratch. In addition, since fleas do feed on blood, if a dog has quite a few fleas it is possible for the dog to become anemic or even die from blood loss. Ticks offer an entirely different problems. There are many diseases transmittable through ticks, such as Lyme disease, as well as around fifteen other significant diseases, all of which can eventually seriously injure or harm an animal.

Luckily, there are many products on the market to combat this problems. There are collars, sprays, shampoos, medications, etc, all with the purpose of providing flea and tick control for dogs. Different animals adapt to different styles of treatment in different ways, but with hundreds of products on the market, fleas and ticks are generally treatable. It may take a few applications to completely get rid of a flea or tick problem, but there is no need to worry. With the right product and a little bit of time, any flea or tick problem is fixable.