A Simple Test To Know Fleas on Your Pets

Sometimes, you can see fleas jumping on your pet. However, the presence of these nasty critters come along with the signs such as scratching, biting, licking and the presence of brownish flea dirt on your pet.

Fleas are blood-sucking creatures that always target warm-blooded animals. Normally, adult fleas make pet coat their residence. You may not be knowing that fleas are usually 1/16 to 1/8-inch-long, red brown in color having three pairs of legs; where the last pair is larger than the others. Due this last large pair, fleas are adapted to jumping and not to misunderstand with flying. As these are wingless creatures, fleas cannot fly and so to move from one animal to another they depend on jumping rather than flying.

Coming on to their anatomical part, fleas body structure is flat. Their body is flattened laterally (side by side), covered with a hard core exoskeleton, which is made of chitin. This chitin makes them shiny, helping them to travel easily through the dog or cat fur without getting stuck into it. It also helps prevent them from being squashed.

As fleas generally survive on animal blood, they are mostly seen on animals especially pets- dogs and cats. There are numerous ways through which you can know the presence of these nasty creatures on your furry pal.

Methods to Check for Fleas

• If pet is scratching
• If you can find the dark dirt like speckles on your pet fur
• If any small brown-black insect scampering around.
• If you can find red inflammation on your pet body
• If any of these things happening to your pet, then the answer for the flea presence is YES!

Still if you have confusion, then the best way is to get a fine-tooth comb and groom your pet with it holding over the white cloth. You can find flea droppings or fleas on the white surface. Just add few drops of water onto this and you will find these droppings turn reddish brown, which is very likely that your furry pal has fleas.

Well, fleas not only reside on your pet, but are also found in the surroundings. What you see on your dog or a cat is just a small proportion, whereas flea eggs, pupae and larvae are actually found in crevices of the floor, in the corners of the furniture and in the back yard.

If your pet has fleas and your house their birthplace, you need to go for a complete flea treatment.

Flea Treatment

• To control the overall population of fleas, the best thing is to treat your pet as well as the surroundings.
• Vacuum your house regularly whether it is bedding, furniture, curtains, floor or skirting boards to help eradicate every stage of flea lifecycle.
• Treat your pet with topical or oral flea control products.
• Treat the backyard with flea bombs or foggers.

Performing these tasks on the regular basis, you can definitely avoid flea infestation and control the existing flea infestation. Rather than waiting for the fleas to attack your pets, bring your own army of treatments to win over these nasty blood-sucking tiny enemies.