September 24, 2024 • 13 mins
The Dog Professor, Robb Lust from the Edgefield Animal Care Center, talks about Fall and Fleas. How they find your pet, how they feed, how theyn attack your home and how to control them on your pet and in your house.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining me in studio today is the dog professor Rob
Lust from the Edgefield Animal Care Center. Rob, we're going
to talk about fall and fleas, and I'll bet this
year fall and fleas is a little different because of
the fact that it didn't rain pretty much at all
between Memorial Day and Labor Day this year, so that
(00:20):
was kind of a thing.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm sure, right, Yeah, I made a pact with myself
as soon as it rained. We talk about fleas because
you know, people don't really realize in everybody's mind fleas
are a along with ticks, are kind of a spring
and summer worry. You know, we think, well, there's mosquitoes
during the summer and everything else during the summer, so
(00:41):
fleas are probably a problem in the summer, and that's
just not actually true. Fleas are more of an issue
in the fall of the year because they're very dependent
on the environmental conditions for their life cycle. Their life
cycle can go, I mean, can be as quick as
five days or as long as two to three months,
(01:04):
all dependent upon the environmental conditions. So you know, they
require moisture just like everything else, and temperature and all
this other stuff. So it's important to keep from having
a problem with fleas is to understand their life cycle
and how you can kind of combat it at certain
points within the life cycle. So basically the flea life
(01:26):
cycle is this. Fleas are around, they take a blood
meal from an animal, your dog, your cat, you the
squirrels in your yard, anything like that. Once they take
a blood meal, within two days, they'll lay some eggs, okay,
and usually if they're living on a host, the eggs
will get laid on the host unless the host is
(01:49):
really covered in hair. The eggs usually fall off into
the environment, and so if they're on your dog or
on your cat and your house, they'll fall off into
your carpet carpet, so if they're outside, they're in the grass,
but basically carpet. What they do, what these eggs do
is they have a coating upon the egg that basically
(02:09):
attaches the egg to whatever fibrous material it's close to,
whether it be a blade of grass or a piece
of carpet or whatever. They basically attach and they're pretty
much solidified in that spot, so they're just not rolling
around like pieces of dust or sand something you can
sweep up with the vacuum. So then what happens within
(02:31):
the next couple of days, usually about five days, that
larva will hatch from the egg. And the larva is
basically a worm, Okay, very small, pretty hard for you
to see unless you're really looking for them, or unless
you have a huge population within your environment to see,
(02:53):
you're probably not going to see the larva. So the
larva's around for another five to fourteen days, depending on
the weather environment and the temperature and moisture and everything else.
And the larva just then moves to a cocoon stage,
just like a caterpillar does before it becomes a beautiful butterfly,
but it moves to the pupil stage and basically it
(03:18):
weaves a protective cocoon around the larva worm as it
develops into an adult flea. While they are in this cocoon,
this cocoon basically protects them from all environmental conditions, and
they will stay in that cocoon until they're developed into
an adult flea. And then it's kind of weird, but
(03:39):
they'll actually stay in that cocoon until they're signaled that
a possible blood meal is close by. Wow, with body heat, environment, vibration,
all of those things are signals to the flea inside
the cocoon that hey, there might be some food out here,
(03:59):
maybe it's time to have out of the cocoon. So
they can stay in this cocoon for you know, a
few days up to a few months, depending on what
the environment presents to them. So a lot of times
when you're if you do have a flea problem in
your house and you've decided, well, I'm gonna set off
the bombs or the fogers, or I'm gonna spray or
(04:20):
whatever I'm going to do, and I'm gonna kill these
fleas that are in the house. Uh, ninety nine percent
of the time, if you're getting a good product usually
recommended by your veterinarian for the fleas, and you go
through the process within your house, you will kill off
a couple stages of the flea in the fleas life cycle.
You'll probably kill off depending on the products you'll use,
(04:41):
You'll you'll definitely kill off the adults, but some products
will kill the larvae and the egg stage also. But
there's very few, if any products out there that will
actually kill the pupil stage in the cocoon. So it's
important to kind of take a multifaceted approach to this
and do it multiple times. Whether the treatment is the
(05:03):
best way to start that treatment or to keep from
having a problem is obviously prevention. Okay. A lot of
times during the fall we get a couple frosts and
people are like, okay, cool, can we can quit given
all this flea medication and HeartWare medication and preventative and
everything else to our pets because the frost is out there,
(05:24):
it's killed all the bugs. Well that's not true. Okay,
We've gotten We've got every year, and you and I
have talked about this forever. We have calls from people
that have fleas on their pets and on themselves in
January of the year with snow on the ground outside
because they've not taken the steps to kind of prevent that.
So rule number one in preventing a flea infestation or
(05:48):
a problem, especially this time of year in the fall,
when all the environment is perfect for this to occur,
treat your pet. Treat your pet with a flea preventative
recommended by your veterinarian. These flea preventatives have since we've
started talking about this years ago, when there were no
flea preventatives to the point we are now. These flea
preventatives are so advanced you can get flea prevention for
(06:11):
not just a month, but a couple months at a
time with one application. So it's important to make sure
you talk to your veterinarian about the preventative medication to
put on your pet or to give your pet. There's
usually two types. There's topical and there's internal. Topical is
the stuff you put on their back works through the
(06:32):
usually the fat layer of the skin, and basically fleas
jump on the pet, they take up the medication through
their feet, poisons the flea flea life cycles, interrupt it
before it can blow up. Same idea with the pills,
except usually when it's something that your dog has to ingest.
Usually it requires a bite from the flea that takes
(06:54):
the blood meal and then takes in the medication and
so forth and so on. So first step and all
of that is preventative. Second step is environment. Okay, outside,
it's important to keep the bugs down. If you don't
see bugs, that doesn't mean they're not there, especially fleas.
You know, we get reports a lot of times with
people who have indoor cats and for some reason they
(07:17):
have fleas on their indoor cats. And I don't know
about you, but the people are like the cat never
goes outside right well during the fall, I know, I
like to open my windows and have the screens and
get the fresh air in. Well, Unfortunately your screen is
not small enough to keep out a flea, so and
fleas can jump up to six feet in a single jump.
(07:40):
So if your cat's sitting in the windows sill and
there's bushes right outside your window, the fleas are probably
coming through the screen and that's how they're getting on
your cat in the house. So it's important even with
indoor cats to treat them with that. You won't see
them on cats as much usually because cats will tend
to groom a few fleas off as they're groomy, but
(08:03):
it doesn't mean they're not there. And a lot of
times you'll get a flea reaction and cats usually you'll
see it at the tips of the tail, okay. And
the reason is a lot of times, you know people
back in the day, they go get a flea collar, okay,
and they put the flea collar on the cat. Well,
the cat still had fleas, but the fleas made basically
a community at the end of the tail. That's because
(08:25):
the medication from the flea collar at the neck did
not reach to the back end of the cat, so
that's not effective at all. So it's important to talk
to your veterinarian and find out what the best flea
prevention medication is for your pet. Spray outside even in
the fall. Put something down for fleas bugs whatever that's
(08:45):
gonna knock down the blossoming population that's going to occur
as soon as that water hits that dry dirt and
leaves and everything else outside. Inside, it's important to use
a two step process and taking care of your insight.
Like we said, if they lay eggs, they're going to
fall off into your carpet. They're going to be in
(09:06):
your carpet once the larva hatches from the egg. The
larva are photophobic, and what that means is they don't
want to be around light. They want to be where
it's dark. So those larva will crawl to places in
the environment that are dark, and that usually means underneath
your furniture, and if you have carpeted in your living room,
they're underneath your furniture. Usually the problem is when people
(09:28):
go to fog that area they want to set off
some foggers and leave, or they want to spray. They
tend to do all the area but the parts under
your furniture. So it's important to make sure if you
do want to set off foggers in your house, that
you take the fogger and spray under the furniture first
and then go Okay. Now, some of these some of
(09:50):
these products are used for your house, will stick around, okay.
They will stick around on the fibers of your carpet
and be there for when the the adult flea hatches
out of the cocoon. Some don't, okay, So it's important
to really read and research those those products that you're
going to use in the house. The best process for
(10:11):
doing this if you're gonna spray in your house, Number one,
you vacuum your rooms. That you're gonna do because, like
I said, the vibration will signal the flea that something's
around and they'll usually hatch out your cocoon. So now
you're dealing with a bigger adult flea population that you
can kill with the product. Hatch them out of those cocoons,
get them out where you can get them. You if
(10:33):
you're sweeping I don't even know if people they make
vacuums with bags in them anymore. But take your take
your your can out that you're with on your vacuum,
dump it. Spray inside the can with some of the
flea spray you're going to use, just in case there
are fleas or things within the can that didn't necessarily
get dumped out. Then then go ahead and spray your environment.
(10:57):
You're going to wait to vacuum again. I oh, you
want to because I know you're just picturing hundreds of
thousands of dead flea bodies laying in the carpet. You're
gonna want to wait at least five to seven days
before you vacuum again. And then because what's gonna happen
is you're gonna usually kill everything except those pupil stages
in the cocoon if you vacuum too soon, and we
(11:20):
usually tell people to spray again within seven to ten days.
If you vacuum too soon, you're gonna hatch a bunch
out and restart that flea cycle again, and that then
you're gonna have to need a third treatment so forth
and so on. So best process vacuum spray leave the
house be for five to seven days, seven to ten days.
If you can then go through the process again in
(11:43):
seven to ten days, spray again and that should put
the kaibosh a little bit to the flea population in
your house. Expect that if they're on your pet, they
are in the house. Do not wait until you're walking
through the house and go, oh, look at there, there's
a flea that just jumped on my ankle. Because, like
we've said before, once they're jumping on you, you're seeing one
(12:04):
percent of the total population within that environment. So let's
tackle that before we get to that point, and hope
we don't see that point, because once we get there,
it's a real real problem.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
That's a lot of stuff, And I'll tell you do
they if somebody's confused and needs advice, they can always
reach out to you guys about all of that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Sure, the first step is always obviously talk to your veterinarian, right,
but if you need that. Number one, one of the
best places for you to research a lot of your
pet questions is this podcast. Yeah, okay, what'd you say?
One hundred? I believe so you can always come back
here look down through the list. If there's something you're
interested in. Obviously we we we have probably covered it,
(12:49):
but your veterinarians your best best choice to talk to.
But you can always if you're in the Central Ohio
area or you want to inform more information from us,
We're glad to answer that information. It's the Edgefield Animal
Care Center. That's where we are. We're in Central Ohio
where a full service, family run pet care facility, where
(13:09):
a veterinary hospital, boarding, grooming, training, all those things. Easiest
way to find all that information you need to find
is where you found it here on iHeartRadio, or you
can go to our website at Edgefieldanimalcare dot com.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Great stuff, it's the Dog Professor podcast. Check it out
where you find podcasts today.
Joining me in studio today is the dog professor Rob
Lust from the Edgefield Animal Care Center. Rob, we're going
to talk about fall and fleas, and I'll bet this
year fall and fleas is a little different because of
the fact that it didn't rain pretty much at all
between Memorial Day and Labor Day this year, so that
(00:20):
was kind of a thing.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I'm sure, right, Yeah, I made a pact with myself
as soon as it rained. We talk about fleas because
you know, people don't really realize in everybody's mind fleas
are a along with ticks, are kind of a spring
and summer worry. You know, we think, well, there's mosquitoes
during the summer and everything else during the summer, so
(00:41):
fleas are probably a problem in the summer, and that's
just not actually true. Fleas are more of an issue
in the fall of the year because they're very dependent
on the environmental conditions for their life cycle. Their life
cycle can go, I mean, can be as quick as
five days or as long as two to three months,
(01:04):
all dependent upon the environmental conditions. So you know, they
require moisture just like everything else, and temperature and all
this other stuff. So it's important to keep from having
a problem with fleas is to understand their life cycle
and how you can kind of combat it at certain
points within the life cycle. So basically the flea life
(01:26):
cycle is this. Fleas are around, they take a blood
meal from an animal, your dog, your cat, you the
squirrels in your yard, anything like that. Once they take
a blood meal, within two days, they'll lay some eggs, okay,
and usually if they're living on a host, the eggs
will get laid on the host unless the host is
(01:49):
really covered in hair. The eggs usually fall off into
the environment, and so if they're on your dog or
on your cat and your house, they'll fall off into
your carpet carpet, so if they're outside, they're in the grass,
but basically carpet. What they do, what these eggs do
is they have a coating upon the egg that basically
(02:09):
attaches the egg to whatever fibrous material it's close to,
whether it be a blade of grass or a piece
of carpet or whatever. They basically attach and they're pretty
much solidified in that spot, so they're just not rolling
around like pieces of dust or sand something you can
sweep up with the vacuum. So then what happens within
(02:31):
the next couple of days, usually about five days, that
larva will hatch from the egg. And the larva is
basically a worm, Okay, very small, pretty hard for you
to see unless you're really looking for them, or unless
you have a huge population within your environment to see,
(02:53):
you're probably not going to see the larva. So the
larva's around for another five to fourteen days, depending on
the weather environment and the temperature and moisture and everything else.
And the larva just then moves to a cocoon stage,
just like a caterpillar does before it becomes a beautiful butterfly,
but it moves to the pupil stage and basically it
(03:18):
weaves a protective cocoon around the larva worm as it
develops into an adult flea. While they are in this cocoon,
this cocoon basically protects them from all environmental conditions, and
they will stay in that cocoon until they're developed into
an adult flea. And then it's kind of weird, but
(03:39):
they'll actually stay in that cocoon until they're signaled that
a possible blood meal is close by. Wow, with body heat, environment, vibration,
all of those things are signals to the flea inside
the cocoon that hey, there might be some food out here,
(03:59):
maybe it's time to have out of the cocoon. So
they can stay in this cocoon for you know, a
few days up to a few months, depending on what
the environment presents to them. So a lot of times
when you're if you do have a flea problem in
your house and you've decided, well, I'm gonna set off
the bombs or the fogers, or I'm gonna spray or
(04:20):
whatever I'm going to do, and I'm gonna kill these
fleas that are in the house. Uh, ninety nine percent
of the time, if you're getting a good product usually
recommended by your veterinarian for the fleas, and you go
through the process within your house, you will kill off
a couple stages of the flea in the fleas life cycle.
You'll probably kill off depending on the products you'll use,
(04:41):
You'll you'll definitely kill off the adults, but some products
will kill the larvae and the egg stage also. But
there's very few, if any products out there that will
actually kill the pupil stage in the cocoon. So it's
important to kind of take a multifaceted approach to this
and do it multiple times. Whether the treatment is the
(05:03):
best way to start that treatment or to keep from
having a problem is obviously prevention. Okay. A lot of
times during the fall we get a couple frosts and
people are like, okay, cool, can we can quit given
all this flea medication and HeartWare medication and preventative and
everything else to our pets because the frost is out there,
(05:24):
it's killed all the bugs. Well that's not true. Okay,
We've gotten We've got every year, and you and I
have talked about this forever. We have calls from people
that have fleas on their pets and on themselves in
January of the year with snow on the ground outside
because they've not taken the steps to kind of prevent that.
So rule number one in preventing a flea infestation or
(05:48):
a problem, especially this time of year in the fall,
when all the environment is perfect for this to occur,
treat your pet. Treat your pet with a flea preventative
recommended by your veterinarian. These flea preventatives have since we've
started talking about this years ago, when there were no
flea preventatives to the point we are now. These flea
preventatives are so advanced you can get flea prevention for
(06:11):
not just a month, but a couple months at a
time with one application. So it's important to make sure
you talk to your veterinarian about the preventative medication to
put on your pet or to give your pet. There's
usually two types. There's topical and there's internal. Topical is
the stuff you put on their back works through the
(06:32):
usually the fat layer of the skin, and basically fleas
jump on the pet, they take up the medication through
their feet, poisons the flea flea life cycles, interrupt it
before it can blow up. Same idea with the pills,
except usually when it's something that your dog has to ingest.
Usually it requires a bite from the flea that takes
(06:54):
the blood meal and then takes in the medication and
so forth and so on. So first step and all
of that is preventative. Second step is environment. Okay, outside,
it's important to keep the bugs down. If you don't
see bugs, that doesn't mean they're not there, especially fleas.
You know, we get reports a lot of times with
people who have indoor cats and for some reason they
(07:17):
have fleas on their indoor cats. And I don't know
about you, but the people are like the cat never
goes outside right well during the fall, I know, I
like to open my windows and have the screens and
get the fresh air in. Well, Unfortunately your screen is
not small enough to keep out a flea, so and
fleas can jump up to six feet in a single jump.
(07:40):
So if your cat's sitting in the windows sill and
there's bushes right outside your window, the fleas are probably
coming through the screen and that's how they're getting on
your cat in the house. So it's important even with
indoor cats to treat them with that. You won't see
them on cats as much usually because cats will tend
to groom a few fleas off as they're groomy, but
(08:03):
it doesn't mean they're not there. And a lot of
times you'll get a flea reaction and cats usually you'll
see it at the tips of the tail, okay. And
the reason is a lot of times, you know people
back in the day, they go get a flea collar, okay,
and they put the flea collar on the cat. Well,
the cat still had fleas, but the fleas made basically
a community at the end of the tail. That's because
(08:25):
the medication from the flea collar at the neck did
not reach to the back end of the cat, so
that's not effective at all. So it's important to talk
to your veterinarian and find out what the best flea
prevention medication is for your pet. Spray outside even in
the fall. Put something down for fleas bugs whatever that's
(08:45):
gonna knock down the blossoming population that's going to occur
as soon as that water hits that dry dirt and
leaves and everything else outside. Inside, it's important to use
a two step process and taking care of your insight.
Like we said, if they lay eggs, they're going to
fall off into your carpet. They're going to be in
(09:06):
your carpet once the larva hatches from the egg. The
larva are photophobic, and what that means is they don't
want to be around light. They want to be where
it's dark. So those larva will crawl to places in
the environment that are dark, and that usually means underneath
your furniture, and if you have carpeted in your living room,
they're underneath your furniture. Usually the problem is when people
(09:28):
go to fog that area they want to set off
some foggers and leave, or they want to spray. They
tend to do all the area but the parts under
your furniture. So it's important to make sure if you
do want to set off foggers in your house, that
you take the fogger and spray under the furniture first
and then go Okay. Now, some of these some of
(09:50):
these products are used for your house, will stick around, okay.
They will stick around on the fibers of your carpet
and be there for when the the adult flea hatches
out of the cocoon. Some don't, okay, So it's important
to really read and research those those products that you're
going to use in the house. The best process for
(10:11):
doing this if you're gonna spray in your house, Number one,
you vacuum your rooms. That you're gonna do because, like
I said, the vibration will signal the flea that something's
around and they'll usually hatch out your cocoon. So now
you're dealing with a bigger adult flea population that you
can kill with the product. Hatch them out of those cocoons,
get them out where you can get them. You if
(10:33):
you're sweeping I don't even know if people they make
vacuums with bags in them anymore. But take your take
your your can out that you're with on your vacuum,
dump it. Spray inside the can with some of the
flea spray you're going to use, just in case there
are fleas or things within the can that didn't necessarily
get dumped out. Then then go ahead and spray your environment.
(10:57):
You're going to wait to vacuum again. I oh, you
want to because I know you're just picturing hundreds of
thousands of dead flea bodies laying in the carpet. You're
gonna want to wait at least five to seven days
before you vacuum again. And then because what's gonna happen
is you're gonna usually kill everything except those pupil stages
in the cocoon if you vacuum too soon, and we
(11:20):
usually tell people to spray again within seven to ten days.
If you vacuum too soon, you're gonna hatch a bunch
out and restart that flea cycle again, and that then
you're gonna have to need a third treatment so forth
and so on. So best process vacuum spray leave the
house be for five to seven days, seven to ten days.
If you can then go through the process again in
(11:43):
seven to ten days, spray again and that should put
the kaibosh a little bit to the flea population in
your house. Expect that if they're on your pet, they
are in the house. Do not wait until you're walking
through the house and go, oh, look at there, there's
a flea that just jumped on my ankle. Because, like
we've said before, once they're jumping on you, you're seeing one
(12:04):
percent of the total population within that environment. So let's
tackle that before we get to that point, and hope
we don't see that point, because once we get there,
it's a real real problem.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
That's a lot of stuff, And I'll tell you do
they if somebody's confused and needs advice, they can always
reach out to you guys about all of that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Sure, the first step is always obviously talk to your veterinarian, right,
but if you need that. Number one, one of the
best places for you to research a lot of your
pet questions is this podcast. Yeah, okay, what'd you say?
One hundred? I believe so you can always come back
here look down through the list. If there's something you're
interested in. Obviously we we we have probably covered it,
(12:49):
but your veterinarians your best best choice to talk to.
But you can always if you're in the Central Ohio
area or you want to inform more information from us,
We're glad to answer that information. It's the Edgefield Animal
Care Center. That's where we are. We're in Central Ohio
where a full service, family run pet care facility, where
(13:09):
a veterinary hospital, boarding, grooming, training, all those things. Easiest
way to find all that information you need to find
is where you found it here on iHeartRadio, or you
can go to our website at Edgefieldanimalcare dot com.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Great stuff, it's the Dog Professor podcast. Check it out
where you find podcasts today.
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