Fleas and Ticks: Prevention, Removal and What Actually Works

External parasites are the most common preventable problem in dogs, and the most commonly mishandled — not because the treatments fail, but because of what people do around them.

Fleas: how to know

Adult fleas are small, fast and dark, and you often will not see them. What you will see:

• Scratching, biting and licking, especially at the base of the tail, the belly and the inner thighs
• Flea dirt — black specks in the coat that look like pepper. Comb some onto damp white paper: if it smears rusty red, it is digested blood, and your dog has fleas
• Small red bumps on human ankles, which is often how people find out first
• Hair loss over the rump in dogs with flea allergy dermatitis, where a single bite triggers days of itching

The 5 percent problem

Adult fleas on your dog account for roughly five percent of an infestation. The other ninety-five percent is eggs, larvae and pupae in your carpets, skirting boards, sofa cushions, car and dog bed.

That is why people treat the dog, see fleas again a fortnight later, and conclude the product failed. It did not — the house re-infested the dog.

Treating an infestation properly means all three of:

1. Every pet in the house, treated at the same time, with an effective product. Cats too — and note that some dog products containing permethrin are lethal to cats.
2. The environment. Wash all bedding at 60°C, vacuum thoroughly and often — including under furniture and along skirting — and empty the vacuum outside immediately. Vacuuming also triggers pupae to hatch, which is useful, because hatched fleas meet the treatment.
3. Time. The pupal stage resists nearly everything and can lie dormant for months. Expect three months before an established infestation is truly clear.

Choosing a flea product

Prescription spot-ons and oral tablets from your vet are the most reliable. Modern isoxazoline chewables kill fleas and ticks quickly and last one to three months.

Over-the-counter products vary enormously. Some share active ingredients with prescription products; others use older compounds that fleas in many regions now resist.

Flea collars range from genuinely effective to near-useless. Read the active ingredient, not the packaging.

Ultrasonic repellers, garlic, brewer’s yeast, essential oils. No good evidence. Some essential oils, tea tree in particular, are actively toxic to dogs at pet-shop concentrations.

Ticks: why they matter more

Fleas are miserable. Ticks are dangerous, because of what they carry: Lyme disease, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis, and in some regions tick-borne encephalitis.

Transmission generally takes time — for Lyme, often twenty-four to forty-eight hours of attachment. That single fact is why daily checking matters so much. A tick found and removed the same evening rarely transmits anything.

Checking your dog

After walks in long grass, woodland, heather or bracken, run your hands over:

• Head, ears and inside the ear flaps
• Neck and under the collar
• Armpits and groin
• Between the toes
• Under the tail

You are feeling for a small firm bump. An unfed tick is the size of a sesame seed; a fed one can be the size of a pea, and is often mistaken for a wart.

How to remove a tick properly

Use a tick hook or fine-tipped tweezers. Nothing else.

1. Slide the hook under the tick, flush against the skin
2. Twist steadily — most hooks specify a direction; either works as long as it is smooth
3. Lift away as it releases. Do not yank straight up
4. Clean the site with plain water or mild antiseptic
5. Dispose of the tick in a sealed bag rather than crushing it
6. Wash your hands

Never burn a tick, smother it in petroleum jelly or oil, drown it in alcohol, or squeeze its body. All of these stress the tick into regurgitating gut contents into your dog — which is precisely how disease is transmitted.

If the mouthparts break off, leave them. They work out like a splinter, and digging causes more infection than the fragment does.

Watch the site for two weeks. See a vet for spreading redness, a swelling that keeps growing, lethargy, fever, loss of appetite, or lameness that shifts from leg to leg.

Year-round or seasonal?

Historically people treated in summer only. Warmer winters and central heating changed that: fleas now breed indoors all year, and ticks are active whenever it is above about 4°C. For most dogs in most regions, year-round prevention is now standard advice. Discuss local risk with your vet, because tick species and disease prevalence vary sharply by area.

Practical extras

Wipes are useful between baths for dogs who come in muddy from tick country, and they let you check a leg properly while cleaning it.

A medicated oatmeal shampoo soothes skin chewed raw by flea bites, though it treats the symptom rather than the parasite.

If your dog is scratching hard enough to break skin, see a vet. Flea allergy dermatitis often needs anti-itch medication to break the cycle while the parasites are dealt with.