Fleas on dogs: The weather is getting warmer and it is officially flea season. I know because so many clients are starting to come in with flea problems. I want to help you before the fleas become a problem in your home. Trust me when I tell you it’s best to start now. If you wait until you have an infestation you will totally regret it!

When I was a kid I always had backyard dogs. That’s just the way it was. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t talk my parents into letting them come in the house. At one time I had four cocker spaniels. Let’s see Scooter, Amber, Shasta and Super Chucky. Dogs were my thing. I didn’t have pop star posters on my walls. I had dog posters. My dogs were my best buds. I hung out with them all the time. I even gave them haircuts when I was like 12 years old! Anyway, they all had fleas. I would bath them often but it never fixed the problem.

When I grew up, I moved out and was only able to see my pups when I came back home to visit. One day I returned to find out something really horrible. It was my worst nightmare. Every single one of my cockers had died because of a flea infestation! Of course I am beside my self. It was awful. My parents began to explain to me that their veterinarian prescribed a dip to kill the fleas on the dogs. This is where the vet went wrong. You see, fleas are sucking blood. Lots of fleas equals lots of blood loss which makes you severely anemic. This can mean your are not getting enough oxygen in your body. The dip prescribed contained something called an oxidase inhibitor, I believe. This also steals oxygen. Basically the cause of their death was suffocation.

Fleas are really bad news and they are actually pretty easy to prevent.

God Bless, Lauren and the PDH crew

Flea Fact: Fleas lay about 27 eggs per day. So if your dog has 100 female fleas that’s two thousand and seven hundred eggs per day! Yowzers!