Flea and Tick Prevention Tips for Dogs & Cats
As we move into winter, we’re focusing on flea and tick prevention tips because there’s perhaps no group of parasites more reviled by pet owners than fleas and ticks. Fleas and ticks are what we call ectoparasites, meaning they remain on rather than in our patients. The Southeastern United States is a hotbed for infestation because our warm, humid climate is ideal for their reproduction and development. This month’s blog will focus on learning about fleas and ticks so that we can be more successful in our treatment and prevention strategies. As the legendary Chinese warrior Sun Tzu said: “Know thy enemy.”
Flea and Tick Prevention Tips: A Focus on Fleas
A 1943 Merrie Melodies cartoon entitled “An Itch in Time” stars A. Flea, stylized in the manner of an itinerant farmer who torments Elmer Fudd’s dog by biting, jackhammering, and dynamiting his skin while singing “Food Around the Corner.” The truth about fleas is decidedly less funny, but these ectoparasites can, in fact, torment our pets.
Fleas are flightless insects that use their strong rear legs to jump long distances relative to their body size. Adult fleas feed on blood and leave behind frass, or flea dirt, as digested blood passes through their GI tract. An adult female can lay as many as 50 eggs each day, and the eggs fall off the host animal and into the environment where they can begin hatching within days to weeks. Larval fleas hatch from these eggs and begin feeding on flea dirt, their own vacated eggshells, dead insects, and even each other. After 1-2 weeks, a larva will form a cocoon. A new adult flea can emerge from the cocoon within 1-2 weeks in ideal conditions, but the flea can remain dormant in the cocoon for almost 7 months if conditions aren’t right.
Flea bites generally cause irritation and itchiness. Flea allergy dermatitis is a common condition in dogs and cats. Affected pets not only experience the immediate irritation from a flea but also a delayed allergic reaction that can result in intense redness and itchiness hours to days after that bite. Trauma to the skin caused by licking, chewing, and scratching can lead to secondary bacterial infection of the skin.
Heavy flea infestations can lead to significant blood loss and anemia, particularly in puppies and kittens. This can be life-threatening.
When our dogs or cats ingest fleas while biting or grooming themselves, they may be infected with a tapeworm, a type of intestinal parasite.
What’s more, fleas also can transmit serious diseases, including feline infectious anemia (mycoplasmosis) and, in the American Southwest, even plague.
Flea and Tick Prevention Tips: A Focus on Ticks
Ticks are arachnid parasites. There are multiple species of ticks, at least 5 of which we see in our day-to-day practice. After hatching from eggs, all the life stages (larvae, nymphs, and adults) of the tick feed on blood. The mouthparts are designed to pierce the skin to facilitate attachment and blood sucking. Female ticks can expand to 100 times their body weight with ingested blood before detaching to lay eggs in the environment—sometimes thousands of eggs. In contrast to fleas, ticks may take up to 3 years to complete their life cycle.
When ticks pierce the skin and attach, this can cause localized irritation and swelling. Heavy infestations in small pets may lead to anemia, though this is not as common as flea anemia.
The American brown dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis) may cause a condition called tick paralysis. A neurotoxin in the female tick’s saliva enters the host’s blood and gradually causes muscle paralysis. This is typically an ascending paralysis, meaning that symptoms are first noticed in the rear legs and paralysis gradually makes its way up the body.
Our most common concern regarding tick attachment and feeding is the potential for tick-borne diseases, including Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ehrlichiosis, and anaplasmosis. The longer a tick remains attached to its host, the greater the risk of disease transmission. Some diseases can be contracted within a few hours of tick attachment while others, like Lyme disease, take 1-2 days of attachment time.
Flea and Tick Prevention Tips: Treatment and Prevention of Infestation
In decades past, topical powders and harsh medicated dips were commonplace treatments for ectoparasites. But, in the modern era, we have much safer and more reliable methods of flea and tick prevention and control.
For rapid or emergency elimination of fleas, Capstar (nitenpyram) is effective. A single dose of Capstar should kill every flea on your pet and keep fleas off for about 24 hours. At Alford Avenue Veterinary Hospital, we dispense Capstar over the counter, meaning this is a product you can pick up even if time or finances aren’t available for an appointment. Capstar is not, however, a good long-term preventive strategy as its effects only last for one day.
An over-the-counter option for longer-term flea and tick prevention is a Seresto collar (flumethrin and imidacloprid). This collar provides 8 months of protection against flea and tick infestation and is one of our more cost-effective preventive strategies. That said, Seresto may not be the best choice for flea allergic animals, as it may not kill fleas fast enough, and sometimes dogs and cats manage to lose their collars which would, of course, result in the need to purchase a new one.
Currently, the most effective options for elimination and prevention of flea and tick infestation are preventives in the isoxazoline class. At Alford, we carry several of these products: NexGard, Bravecto, Simparica Trio, and Revolution Plus. All these products are prescription products, meaning we need to have your pet examined within a calendar year to dispense them.
- NexGard (afoxolaner) is a monthly chewable for dogs that begins killing fleas and ticks immediately and provides 1 month of reliable protection against reinfestation.
- Bravecto (fluralaner) is a chewable for dogs given once every 12 weeks (3 months) that provides an equivalent level of protection; however, there is one species of tick (lone star tick) for which it may only provide 8 weeks of protection. There also are topical formulations of Bravecto for dogs and cats that are applied to the skin.
- Simparica Trio (sarolaner and moxidectin) is a monthly chewable for dogs that provides the same flea and tick control as NexGard but also provides monthly heartworm prevention and deworming against hookworms and roundworms. An up-to-date heartworm test is required.
- Revolution Plus (sarolaner and selamectin) is a monthly topical preventive for cats that provides protection against fleas, ticks, heartworms, ear mites, and select intestinal parasites.
There are certain patients for whom one preventive option may be preferred over another, depending on your comfort level with a given product, your pet’s risk factors, and your home environment. We can help you choose the best option.
Whichever preventive is used, it’s important that it’s a year-round priority. In Alabama, both fleas and ticks can be active in any month of the year. Fleas do start to die at temperatures below 46 degrees Fahrenheit but can survive comfortably in the shelter of our homes or on our warm-blooded, furred pets. Ticks can survive for more than 2 weeks in continuous sub-freezing temperatures.
Here’s another important point: over 90 % of the flea’s life cycle is spent in the environment. A single dose of preventive may kill all the adult fleas, but eggs in the environment will continue to hatch, larvae will continue to feed, and new adults will be emerging from their cocoons. If an infestation is present, it may take up to 3 months of consistent use of an effective preventive to eliminate the flea population. Treating the home environment—both indoors and outdoors—can accelerate the elimination of fleas.
Think your pet has fleas or found a tick? Contact Alford Avenue Veterinary Hospital & schedule an appointment to help rid your pet of fleas or ticks.