Fleas & Ticks: An ounce of prevention

---

Do you know what they say about an ounce of prevention?
Besides the beautiful wildflowers peppering our hillsides, our wet winter is expected to bring us a significant flea and tick season. The warm, moist conditions that we are seeing now are favored by both fleas and ticks, and will actually accelerate their life cycles.

​Some flea/tick facts for you:
- Fleas can jump 100X their own body length. 
- They will hitchhike until they find a suitable host (ie: bring them home on your clothes to your pets).
- Average lifespan of a flea 2-3 months, ticks 3 months, but both have to ability to “go on hold” with their lifecycles until conditions are favorable. Ticks up to 3 years!
- A single flea will lay up to 2,000 eggs, and a tick several thousand.
- Fleas will lay them on the pet, but will roll off and develop in the environment (that is under your couch, in bedding, carpet…) Ticks lay their eggs off the host in the environment (yard, window casings, baseboards, drapes…) 
- Fleas and ticks have been around for at least 100 million years!

Is your skin crawling yet? Besides these wee beasties being disgusting, why care about an infestation? They will cause a multitude of health issues including dermatological conditions, discomfort, stress for owners, anemia/death in some, tapeworms, can transmit protozoan, bacterial, rickettsial and viral pathogens (to humans too)- Lyme disease or Bubonic Plauge anyone? Ticks rank second to mosquitoes in transmitting more disease than all other pests.

​What to do?
This is where Ben Franklin’s idea of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" comes in. Get your pets on a quality, monthly flea and tick preventative before you have a problem! You won’t have to deal with treating your house, pets, yard and having to make appointments to cure Fluffy’s flea allergic dermatitis, or tapeworm infestation, or having to send blood off to the lab for a tick titer after Fido isn’t eating and running a fever. The cost of flea prevention is far less than treatment and a whole lot easier! Dr. Davis has her own flea and tick prevention favorites that you can discuss with her at your next appointment and decide which will work best for your pets. If we don’t have it in stock, we can direct ship it to you from our online pharmacy!
​We love to keep pets healthy and their owners happy!