These on-the-spot type treatments for dog and cat flea problems all provide one month of complete protection.
Advantage flea treatment kills fleas very quickly. The active ingredient, imidaloprid, acts as a nerve agent that fries their entire nervous system.
Ninety eight to a hundred percent of the fleas on the animal die within 12 hours of application.
Brands like Frontline flea and Advantage flea killers have almost instant results and long lasting protection.
If you have this treatment available, your animal shouldn't suffer from flea discomfort.
The best solution is to pick a good flea medication for your dog.
External parasites that live off of the blood of mammals, reptiles, and birds are often referred to as mites and ticks.
While there are 5 species of ticks in North America, the America dog tick is the most widely known.
Now for the scary stuff: Ticks are only second to mosquitoes in transmitting diseases to humans.
Ticks can spread diseases like Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, equine encephalitis, and ehrlichiosis to humans.
They also spread diseases amongst livestock, as well as our beloved pets.
Another type of mite living in the Rocky Mountains is the wood tick.
Some common weapons to combat them are tick collars and anti-flea/tick shampoos.
In order for tick control to be effective during tick season, ticks should be checked for and removed completely if found.
Part of the tick may be left in the wound, if you are not careful, thus increasing the likelihood of infection.
Heartworms are life threatening internal parasites that are transmitted by mosquitoes.
The parasites go through several stages before becoming adults.
Once mature, the heartworms move to the heart to survive off of the blood supply.
This can cause symptoms including coughing, difficulty breathing, and ultimately heart failure.
If the disease is caught early enough, there are treatments available that may prevent the death of a pet from this parasitic disease.
Interceptor for dogs is one such treatment, which also tackles hookworms and ascarid infections in one fell swoop.
Another common infection is kennel cough.
This is a form of bronchitis which can hit dogs hard, and readily spreads from one animal to another when many canines are held together in the same facility.
However, the infection can be treated with proper use of antibiotics, and it can even be prevented with vaccinating for canine adenovirus, distemper, parainfluenza, and bordetella.
