• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Tailster Blog

Tailster

  • Dogs
  • Cats
  • Walkers & Sitters
Tailster / Dogs / Useful Dog Tips / Health & Wellbeing / How To Prepare For A Flea Free Summer

How To Prepare For A Flea Free Summer

As the summer season approaches, so comes to all pet owners the increased threat of flea infestations. We do all that we can to keep our homes ‘flea-free’, but it only takes one rogue tick to start a landslide – just the thought of it makes us scratch!

Contents hide
1 The flea life cycle has four key stages:
2 Treat Regularly
3 Treat All Animals
4 Treat The Home
5 Clean

Fleas can cause a number of problems for our pets. These include:

  • Intense itching and scratching, which can result in hair loss
  • The skin condition Flea Allergy Dermatitis, caused by an allergy to flea saliva
  • Fleas can even cause Tapeworm infestations

Unfortunately, fleas have evolved in such a way that there is no one product that can kill them at all stages of their life cycle. This means that it requires a a strong understanding of each stage to deal with the problem efficiently.

puppies 115081 1920

The flea life cycle has four key stages:

  1. Adult Flea: These are the fleas that you’ll find living on your pets. Females can lay up to 50 eggs a day, and adult fleas are easily killed by spot-on treatments.
  2. Flea Eggs: When adult fleas lay eggs on your pet, they commonly fall off into the surrounding environment – your home! After 2-5 days, they hatch into larvae, which will require household environmental sprays or flea treatments to kill.
  3. Flea Larvae: Flea larvae don’t like the light, and commonly move under furniture, between floorboards and deep into carpet to escape it. After a week or two, these change into pupae, encased in a protective cocoon, and can be killed by household environmental sprays.
  4. Flea Pupae: These can remain dormant for up to a year, only hatching when prompted by certain triggers (ie. warmth, vibrations, carbon dioxide, etc.). At this point, the adult flea hatches and latches on to your pets. FLEA PUPAE CANNOT BE KILLED. Instead, they must be allowed to hatch then killed after they jump onto your pet.
See also  Heatstroke in dogs | How to avoid and treat heatstroke this summer

Here are some ways to deal with the problem and prevent further infestations:

cat 649164 1920

Treat Regularly

This is the simplest way of preventing a flea infestation and something that all pet owners should be doing on a regular basis.

One pipette of spot-on treatment typically lasts for 4-6 weeks, meaning that treatment should be topped up around this time. This, of course, depends upon how often you bath and groom your pets.

While many owners tend to stop treatment as soon as a flea problem has been eradicated, it is recommended that treatment should always be maintained to prevent future infestations.

Treat All Animals

If you live in a multi-pet home, it’s vital that you treat all animals for fleas.

Animals that are susceptible to fleas include dogs, cats, rabbits and ferrets, meaning that failure to treat all pets could leave them open to infestations, which can quickly turn into a vicious cycle.

It’s therefore vital that all animals are treated regularly.

chihuahua 627299 1920

Treat The Home

Whilst fleas as we know them live on our pets, in certain stages of life they survive within the home.

High quality household sprays will contain the relevant active ingredients to kill adult fleas and eradicate eggs and larvae for up to 12 months. It’s therefore vital that you…

Clean

Aside from spot-on treatments, this is the best way to ensure a flea-free home.

Wash your pet’s bedding/any fabrics that they frequently come into contact with regularly, preferably on a high, 60C wash. This will kill any adult fleas, eggs or larvae hiding in their bedding.

See also  Paws for Thought - How to Take Care of Your Dog's Paws

It’s also important to vacuum regularly, as this will remove dead fleas and stimulate pupae to hatch. As this is the only way of eradicating pupae, vacuuming will kill the fleas as soon as they hatch, meaning that your pets wont be at risk.

Following all of these tips will help to maintain a flea-free home, intervening at every stage of the typical flea’s life cycle.

Work full time and looking for regular pet care? Perhaps Tailster can help! We have a range of vetted carers across the UK, available to care for your pet as and when you require. For more information, click here.

21st August 2021

Footer

  • Book a carer
  • Become a carer
  • About
  • Contact

Affiliate Disclosure

We believe in being as transparent as possible when it comes to this site. With this in mind, please be aware that we may receive remuneration for some of the products we review on this site.

Tailster is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com (and other Amazon programs).

We will also list ads from time to time. You should be able to see these as text links or blocks of ads which have a small notation indicating “Ads by Google” or “AdChoices”.

Our mission is to help our visitors, but this is also very clearly a for-profit site and you should realize as much. We include only those products that we believe could benefit you, some of which we may get a commission if you purchase them. However, we also provide links on the site to information resources for which we receive no compensation.

If you have any questions whatsoever, please contact us using the "contact" option on the site menu and we will be happy to answer any questions.

Trademark Dislosure

Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates.

In addition, any other trademarks and logos we mention on this site are also the property of their respective owners.

Copyright © 2025 Tailster