‘Tis the (Flea) Season
05/09/08

When fleas get a foothold in your yard and on your pets they are difficult to get rid of even with the myriad of new products we now have to combat them. The best advice is to prevent them from getting started in the first place.

The flea life cycle includes eggs, larvae, pupae and adults. When all are counted, the adults represent only 1 to 5 % of the total population. Typically, 50% are in the form of insecticide resistant eggs, 30% as larvae and 15% as pupae, also insecticide resistant. This is why flea killers don’t work well in the long run. The pupae simply hatch out as young adults and re-infest your pets. Furthermore, the eggs and pupae will delay hatching until conditions are ideal, that is warm, humid weather. This is the time of year when flea problems begin. Once the adult female has had a blood meal she lays eggs in huge numbers. The eggs are able to hatch out in as little as 16 days or delay hatching for months.

Long acting insecticidal products such as Frontline^® work by killing adults over long periods of time thus preventing eggs from being laid. Several new products have come out including Promeris^®, which have not been out long enough for fleas to have developed resistance to them.

We feel Sentinel^® is a better alternative for dogs in many cases. It prevents the flea eggs from hatching as well as prevents heartworms, intestinal worms including roundworms, hookworms and whipworms in addition to the flea prevention. It is extremely safe and preferable in our opinion to long acting insecticidal products. Insecticides are used as needed but only when adult fleas are noted. Sentinel^® does not kill fleas. It addresses the 50% of the population that are in the form of eggs with an extremely safe ingredient. It’s “smart” flea control.

Whatever form of flea control you and your vet decide is best for your pets, it is important to get started now. Preventing flea problems is so very much easier than getting rid of a bad infestation.