FLEAS:
The flea is the most common canine pest. They're often the source of tapeworms, can cause severe itching and allergy, and they often bite humans, too.
Fleas live on blood from their dog or cat host. An adult flea can lay more than 2,000 eggs in her brief 50-day lifespan. An adult flea is about the size of a pinhead and can jump 100 times its own height –allowing them to travel quickly from host to host and from host to hiding place for laying eggs. The female lays eggs on the host animal, but the eggs also fall to the ground, carpet, sofa, dog bed, owner's bed, or easy chair where they hatch in two-to-five days.
How to spot them:
Fleas are hard to spot so look for clues. If your best friend scratches, he may have been bitten by a flea –but he may also have dry skin, an allergy, or mange mites. If your pet bites or scratches his rear end, especially around his tail, or the inside or outside of his thighs, fleas are a strong possibility. Flea dirt looks like sprinkled pepper on the dog. If you drop some of this "pepper" onto a damp paper towel and it turns reddish, it's from fleas, not seasoning!
Treatment:
There are lots of flea control products, depending on the extent of the problem, from herbs and electronics to biological controls. Talk with your veterinarian or a knowledgeable pet store owner who can make suggestions for safe and effective products.
TICKS:
With eight legs instead of six, the tick is cousin to the spider. As they feast on mammal blood, Ticks can spread diseases such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, encephalitis, tick paralysis, and Lyme disease, so it is very important to prevent tick infestations in domestic dogs.
How to spot them:
Don't wait for symptoms. Unlike the flea, the tick is a sluggish mover and can easily be picked off your dog with tweezers before it finds a feeding spot. After a walk in the woods, check your dog (and yourself) for ticks from nose to tail. Look for feeding ticks around the dog's head and ears, in his armpits and the inside of his thighs. The males are pretty small, but the females are quite large after they latch and feed.
Treatment:
Daily grooming can find ticks that have not yet become embedded in the skin. Ticks can be picked up on a comb and flicked into a container of alcohol.
Remove embedded ticks immediately. First, forget all you have heard about coating ticks with petroleum jelly, burning them, dousing them with lighter fluid, etc. Just protect fingers from the tick's body fluids with surgical gloves or a plastic bag, grasp the tick firmly, rock it back and forth a few times, and pull it out. If a patch of skin comes along, it's unlikely that any of the tick's head has been left behind.
A dab of antiseptic cream on the spot where the tick was removed will help prevent local infection, especially on tender ears, a favorite feeding place for ticks.
To control ticks in the environment, keep grass trimmed and control the spread of shrubbery and tall weeds. If you, a family member, or your dog falls ill after removal of a tick, be sure to tell the doctor that Lyme disease is a possibility.
MOSQUITOES:
The mosquito prefers to bite people but will settle for a dog. They can carry heartworm microfilaria, the immature stage of the heartworm, and can transfer it to your dog.
Prevention:
If you live in or travel to areas where there are mosquitoes, talk with your veterinarian about routine testing and/or preventative measures.