If you see a few fleas on your dog, more fleas are certainly lurking in the dark corners of your homes or outside your doors. You need to have an effective plan of action to counter flea infestation before it gets out of hand.

Getting rid fleas is easy. Unfortunately, cat and dog fleas are so tenacious that you can never eliminate them if you simply use flea treatment drops, flea shampoos, sprays, dips, oral tablets, and even a flea collar. This is not to say that these commercially sold anti-flea products are ineffective. To make them work on your pets, you must do more than just treat your pet; you must treat the entire environment and prevent fleas from reproducing and re-infesting your pet.

If you are serious about getting rid of fleas, here are four easy steps to make your pet and home flea-free.

Keep Your Pet Clean and Groomed

Your pet’s hygiene is essential in keeping fleas from infesting it. Use a flea shampoo or natural insect repellant like neem oil or eucalyptus. If using a shampoo, choose one that will kill the fleas. Bathing it regularly and combing your pet with flea comb will remove fleas immediately. Don’t simply pull the fleas from the fur or flush them out the bath sink. Kill them with hot water so they won’t hop on your pet’s fur again or lay more eggs, or crush them if that doesn’t sound grubby.

Use Flea Treatment

There are different ways to treat the fleas on your cats and dogs. Many flea treatment products contain chemical ingredients that can potently kill these external parasites that are sucking the blood out of your wonderful pets. Some famous flea control brands are:

• Frontline contains an active ingredient Fipronil that kills adult fleas within a day and halts the life cycle of fleas by killing any new flea that might lay eggs. Frontline products are in the forms of sprays, drops, general flea medication, and other flea control products.
• Advantage with Imidacloprid paralyzes the flea’s nervous system and immediately kills them on contact without biting your pet for as short as 12 hours. It also contains pyriproxyfen, and insect growth regulator (IGR) that kills flea larvae and inhibits eggs from hatching.
• Vectra works for dogs only. The Permethrin in it is tolerable for dogs but is harmful to grooming cats. Vectra is also applied once a month and used effectively as Frontline.
• Comfortis and Capstar are tablets or pills used to control fleas. When fleas bite on the pet’s skin, the active ingredient in these tablets absorbed in the blood stream can kill the fleas immediately. It is very safe to use and reduces your family’s exposure to insecticides.
• Alternative and natural flea control can kill fleas without hazardous effects on your pets and the family members too. Homemade repellants from essential oils, garlic, brewer’s yeasts and apple cider have been used to treat mild flea problems on cats and dogs.

Get Rid of Fleas in Your Surroundings

After you have treated your pet’s flea, you must ensure to de-flea the entire house and areas surrounding it where fleas may possibly have laid eggs and awaiting to be hatched. It will be a general cleaning, vacuuming and disinfecting the house and your backyard.

• Wash in hot water every linen or other materials where your pet cat or dog have laid. Check the materials if they are washable in warm water, if not you can expose them to direct sunlight to kill the remaining fleas in them.
• Sprinkle powder/dust on your carpet and pet beddings but look for the ingredient pyrethroid which is a safe insecticide.  The product will not harm your pet when properly applied. Flea powder and dust will kill the flea in its adult and early stages of life cycle.
• Vacuum the house especially the dark and moist areas, and any place where your pet might have gone. Don’t leave any furniture unmoved including rugs and car. Look into every corner, dark crevices and under beds and vacuum them. You can apply flea powder to the vacuum bags so that the fleas will totally die when vacuumed up. Dispose the vacuum bags immediately and properly.
• Cut your grasses short and remove any moist or dark places in your backyard where larvae possibly hide. Throw away any inorganic materials or dirt that can be food to the developing larvae.
• Fog the area with insecticide or flea control sprays to kill any adult and larvae indoor and outdoor. An flea spray with adulticides kill the adult fleas and an insect growth inhibitor (IGR) stop the life cycle of larvae and eggs.

Make Sure Your Pet Maintains a Healthy Diet

Healthy pets may be a source of good blood to the flea, but actually these parasites prefer pets with weaker immune or defense system thus they feast on young and malnourished pets. If you feed your pets with nutritious food and refrain from those with too many preservatives, you can surely save your pet from disorders caused by fleas.