Four Ways To Protect Your Puppy From Fleas

Blog

One of the most disheartening sights for a pet owner is watching a dog nip and scratch due to a flea infestation. However, this sight is even more discouraging if you own a puppy that is too young for conventional flea medications. Though recommendations vary from product to product, many conventional flea products are not recommended for puppies who are 14 weeks of age or younger. Check out these tips to combat your puppy's flea infestation.

1. Bathe Your Puppy

To rid your puppy of fleas, you need to manually remove them. One of the best ways to do this is to give the puppy a soapy bath. Fill your bathtub with enough warm water to reach the puppy's neck. Add a few drops of dish detergent to help drown the fleas. Put your puppy in the bath and keep it in the water for 10-15 minutes to kill the fleas.

2. Invest in a Flea Comb

A flea comb is a terrific tool for manually removing fleas from a puppy. When used in conjunction with a soapy bath, it is even more effective.

After removing your puppy from the bath tub, towel dry the fur. Then, clean the puppy's fur with the flea comb. The teeth of a flea comb are close together and physically pull the fleas from the fur. As you remove fleas, you can kill them using soapy, hot water.

Repeat the process of bathing and flea combing your puppy every few days until all of the fleas are gone.

3. Treat Any Surrounding Animals

It is important than any adult animals that your puppy comes into contact with be free of fleas. Otherwise, the fleas will jump from the adult animal to your puppy, restarting the infestation. For this reason, you may prefer to keep your puppy away from other animals until it is old enough for conventional flea prevention medication.

4. Remove Fleas from the Puppy's Environment

One mistake that pet owners commonly make is failing to kill the fleas in the puppy's environment. During an infestation, the fleas infect the puppy's bedding and any fabric areas where the puppy likes to lay. You can kill fleas on bedding and blankets by washing the items in the washing machine on hot water. 

Use a bagged vacuum on the items that you cannot put in your washing machine, like your sofa or recliner. Vacuum the items thoroughly to remove all of the fleas and dispose of the vacuum bag so that the fleas do not escape. Repeat the vacuuming process every few days to remove all of the fleas.

Contact a clinic like Pittsburgh Spay & Vaccination Clinic to learn more.

Share

21 June 2017

spaying and neutering your pets

Having your pets spayed and neutered is more important than most people realize. Not only does it help manage the pet population, but it can help your pet's behavior and protect them from unwanted and unsafe pregnancies. Our blog is all about spaying and neutering pets. You will learn about the procedure, the benefits and even the potential risks of having it done. Hopefully, the information that we have included here will help you come to an educated decision about whether your pet should be spayed or neutered. Take your time to read through everything compiled here and you should have little question about the procedure.