The PetCot Company: Tips For Preventing Flea & Tick Infestation

With the nicer weather brings great opportunity to get outdoors with your pets. This also brings a high chance of dealing with the frustrations of flea and ticks. Not only is it frustrating for you and uncomfortable for your pet, but these pesky little parasites can also causes illnesses and diseases. While it's practically impossible to avoid them altogether, the PetCot Company has a list of things that you can do to prevent and treat for fleas and ticks - take a look!

Bathe Regularly

Bathing your pet with a shampoo or flea/tick dip that contains medicated ingredients will typically kill ticks and fleas on contact. While this can labor intensive, it is an inexpensive method of protection and prevention. Since this doesn't necessarily do well to prevent ticks and fleas, you'll need to repeat the process frequently as the effective ingredients won't last as long as a topical or oral treatment.

Use a Topical Treatment

One of the benefits of going with topical treatments is that they come in many forms, such as powders, sprays, spot-on treatments, and collars. Using an over the counter spot-on medication that you purchase from your veterinarian, pet store, or online can be a very effective method for controlling both ticks and fleas. These medications are effective at keeping parasites at bay for up to a month. Collars that repel ticks and fleas are an additional preventive you can use, though they are mainly only useful for protecting the neck and head. Tick and flea powders work to kill and repel. These can also be used where your pet sleeps and around the home. Sprays kill ticks and fleas quickly and provides residual protection. Sprays can be used in between shampoos and dips, and when you are planning to spend time out in wooded areas.

Look into Oral Solutions

Oral medications can work to kill both ticks and immature fleas and will disrupt the lifecycle of fleas. They are easy to give and you won’t have to be concerned about small children and cats coming into contact with dogs immediately after application, as you might with topical treatments. These oral solutions are available in daily or monthly doses. Monthly treatments typically require a veterinarian prescription, while the daily oral solution may be purchased over the counter.

Treat Your Home & Lawn

Keeping your lawn, bushes, and trees trimmed back will help reduce the population of fleas and ticks in your backyard. If there are fewer areas for these parasites to live and breed, there will be fewer of them to be concerned with. If you still have a problem, consider using one of the various household and yard sprays or granular treatments that are available from your veterinarian, pet store, or local garden center. Just be careful when using these products, as they can be harmful to animals, fish, and humans. If you have a severe problem or you are concerned about the proper handling of these chemicals, you might want to consider hiring an exterminator to apply yard and area sprays to control the ticks and fleas.

Prevent Bedding Infestations

Fleas love to nest in the same place your pet does to keep feeding on him or her. When your pet has fleas, the larvae and eggs fall off your pet and land wherever your pet spends their time at. This means that most likely your pet's bedding is the perfect place for larvae to thrive. To control flea infestation in your pet's bedding you should wash and dry it thoroughly in the hottest temperatures possible without damaging it, and keep the area well swept. OR rather than battling with constantly cleaning and treating cushioned bedding, invest in an easy to clean, hygienic premium raised dog bed! These premium raised pet beds protect dogs from the breeding ground of ticks and fleas.

As you can see, there are many different ways to treat and prevent fleas and ticks. Don't forget, consistency is key. Even one missed treatment with a flea and tick control can set the stage for infestation that takes months to resolve, or put your pet at greater risk of exposure to illness or disease. So be sure you treat your pet now and continue taking preventative measures throughout the rest of the year. And don't forget to get a PetCot premium raised pet bed to ensure your pet's comfort and health!

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