Control Of Fleas On Dogs And Ticks For The Health Of Your Dogs
Fleas on dogs are hard to get rid of. They are small wingless insects, one-sixteenth to one-eighth inches in size, very agile, reddish-brown in color, and with tube-like mouth-parts adapted to feeding on warm blooded creatures. Their bodies are long and thin, permitting easy movement through the hairs, feathers, or in the case of humans, underclothes. Their hind legs are long and well adapted for jumping. Fleas can jump two-hundred times their own body length, making the flea one of the best jumpers of all known animals in comparison to body size.
The Flea's Body And Killing Them
The flea's body is hard and covered with many hairs and short spines directed backward. This configuration assists moving about on your dog. The flea's tough body is able to withstand great pressure. Even hard squeezing between the fingers is normally insufficient to kill the flea. One way is to capture them on your dog with adhesive tape and crush them between fingernails, roll them between the fingers, or put them in a fire-safe area and burn them with a match. Fleas can also be drowned.
Fleas And Their Larvae
Fleas lay tiny white oval shaped eggs. Their larvae are small and pale with bristles covering their body. They lack eyes, and have mouthparts adapted to chewing. While the adult flea's diet consists solely of blood, the larvae feed on various organics including the feces of mature fleas. In the pupae lifecycle phase the larvae are enclosed in a silken, debris-covered cocoon. Therefore, it is important to control fleas on dogs.
The Wood Tick
The wood tick is a blood-feeding parasite that is often found in tall grasses and shrubs where it will lie in wait to attach itself to a passerby. It attaches itself by inserting its mandibles and its feeding tube into the skin of a dog, deer, human or other warm-blooded creature. It is larger than a flea and about the same size as a bedbug unless it has gorged itself with blood. When feeding upon a warm-blooded host, the tick can grow ten to fifteen times its normal size. The tick is brownish in color and crawls. It does not jump, but can hide above the trail and drop down onto a warm-blooded host and attach.
Ixodiphagus Hookeri
The parasitic wasp, Ixodiphagus hookeri, has been investigated for its potential to control tick populations. It lays its eggs into ticks and the hatching baby wasp kills the tick. Another natural form of control for ticks is the Guinea fowl. This bird can consume mass quantities of ticks — two Guinea fowl can clear two acres in a year.
Controlling Ticks And Fleas
Topical flea and tick treatment can be toxic to animals and humans. Phenothrin in combination with Methoprene was once a popular treatment for animals. Phenothrin kills adult fleas and ticks while Methoprene is an insect growth inhibitor that interrupts the insect's lifecycle. A liquid spray, duster, or aerosol spray may be used to control fleas on dogs and tick populations on animals.
