How to kill fleas dead!

March 22, 2008

It seems pretty obvious, you want to know how to kill fleas. But do you? Is that enough? Will you be satisfied if you kill fleas? Will you know that you are killing fleas?

I’m trying to be a bit provocative - to help you understand when a product you have purchased to kill fleas is working.

How to kill fleas? The answer is simple - buy and use a product designed to kill fleas. It is that simple!!

The bit that is not simple is whether you will be able to recognize when a product is killing fleas or not.

The dead flea / the dying flea / the unaffected flea

Dead fleas are simple - they are not moving, it’s a “no brainer”.

Dying fleas are very difficult but if you can catch a flea to examine it and you have used a flea control product then, its likely that the flea is dying. Dying fleas are slow, may have paralyzed back legs and cannot jump. If your product is working very well, and killing fleas quickly, you will also observe a higher proportion of small black unfed fleas on your pet.

The unaffected flea is just that… unaffected. It will move through your pet’s coat rapidly and be difficult if not impossible to catch. If a flea is unfed, then it’s possible that you may find an unaffected flea on a treated pet, which has only just recently jumped onto your pet.

So why is it so difficult to determine whether a product is working?

Because we cannot track individual fleas. If you could tag or mark each individual flea, it would be simple to work out whether your flea treatment was working or not. But you can’t. So you may perceive that a product is not working just because there are live fleas on your pet - and because you see them day after day after day… But its quite possible to be seeing a new batch of fleas every day. Yesterdays fleas are dead. Todays fleas are dying. Tomorrows fleas are very much alive waiting to jump onto your pet.

How to kill fleas dead!

It’s not difficult if you can use an effective flea treatment - the difficult thing is how to work out if the product is working.

Posted in Flea control issues