Flea Treatments

Bite back against fleas – how to treat your pet

Using spot-on flea treatments to combat fleas in cats, dogs and small pets

Fleas are irritating and are just as happy to bite humans as they are pets. They can make your pet feel miserable, causing irritation and potentially more serious skin conditions. Spot-on flea treatments help protect your pet against fleas and their effects as well as helping to make sure your pet doesn’t bring these uninvited guests home.

What are fleas?

Fleas are tiny, wingless insects that feed on a host animal's blood, causing irritation and sometimes skin infections, hair loss and nasty diseases. Pets can pick up fleas from other animals when they’re outside, and even indoor pets are at risk as we can bring fleas inside on our clothing.

The tip of the iceberg

Once you’ve spotted fleas, you might not realise that there’s more to the problem than meets the eye. The adult fleas you can see on your dog, cat or small pet make up only about five per cent of an infestation – the other 95% are eggs, larvae and pupae that are hidden in your home, and these will soon become adult fleas themselves! A single flea can lay up to 50 eggs a day – which means a small flea problem can turn into a big one within a few short weeks. In order to deal with fleas, you need a flea treatment that will kill adult fleas on your pet, and you will also need to tackle the life stages in your home with a veterinary approved environmental flea spray.

Spreading disease

Because they bite and feed on the blood of their hosts, fleas are notorious disease spreaders. Fleas can also cause anaemia if infestations are severe. Some cats are allergic to flea saliva so get severe skin disease from flea bites and it’s even possible for your pet to become infested by tapeworm by swallowing an infected flea during grooming, which is why we would recommend that you treat for worms at the same time as fleas.

Combating fleas

There are a range of different flea treatments available in various different forms such as tablets, sprays and spot-ons.

How effective is a Spot-On?

Effectiveness is always an important consideration for pet owners using flea treatments. Squeezing a small amount of liquid onto your pet’s coat may not feel like you’re doing all you can to combat these biting pests.

Luckily, Spot-Ons pack a lot of punch in their little pipette. They contain an active ingredient that spreads quickly from the point of application, killing fleas normally within 24 hours and preventing further infestations for up to four weeks in dogs, three to four weeks in cats and one week in rabbits.

Nobody wants their pet to have to endure the discomfort and irritation of fleas. Apply a Spot-On treatment monthly all year-round to help protect your beloved pets from unwanted pests.

Treating the home

If your pet has fleas, then unfortunately that means your home has fleas too, as fleas lay eggs that fall from your pet into your home. Treating your pet is often only part of the picture, you also need to tackle the flea problem in the home, household flea sprays can help with this.