My dog's fleas won't go away despite all my efforts. What to do?

Hello and welcome to Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. Ticks live in the grass and jump on animals/cloths, and then bite and stay attached. Fleas will live in bedding/baseboards and will jump on and bite animals and then jump off. If you get a product such as Frontline, Bravecto, Nexguard, Advantix, Advantage, Revolution, etc. that should deal with fleas. Some will deal with ticks, but some won't. I would check to see if you aren't actually dealing with bed-bugs. Try getting a picture of the creatures that are on Bruno, and are crawling towards him, and we can try to help you determine what they are and what to use. Best of luck with Bruno!

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! I certainly understand your frustration. There are 2 products that I particularly like in these cases where different therapies have failed to help. I like Bravecto as a preventative and Capstar to be used concurrently as needed for fleas. Capstar is crucial because it can help kill a lot of fleas at once and it can be used as often as once daily to effect. Also, it is important to vacuum the house and all things that have contact with them frequently. Try this for 1-3 months and if does not make a difference, they may have another type of allergy such as a food allergy or environmental allergy. This is likely going to help. Good luck and have a good night!

Hi and thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! Fleas can be frustrating to eradicate even when using a quality product like Bravecto. You may wish to consider a product like Capstar or even a topical flea medication in addition to the Bravecto. Products like Frontline Gold, Vectra and Advantix tend to work well. The flea life cycle sometimes necessitates that you also treat your household and even your yard to fully eradicate the infestation. Regular laundering of pet bedding can help but you may still end up needing to have an exterminators help. Finally, make sure all pets in the household are treated with a safe, quality flea preventative as often house cats that have not been treated can harbor fleas. Good luck!

Hello there! Just to let you know, the message caps off at 500 characters, so it ends at "I usually don't even". I think I have enough information to answer your question appropriately, I just wanted to let you know in case you said something pertinent after that. I'm sorry to hear about your flea invasion! Those are very frustrating! Fleas have a complicated life cycle that requires multiples angles of treatment to totally get rid of in a household. Coconut oil will only give you a greasy dog, which it sounds like you have already found out. Flea and tick shampoo is a great place to start!. Your next step is putting Boogie on a flea preventive that lasts a month. You can get a brand called Advantage from Petco without a prescription. 90% of the flea eggs are going to be wherever Boogie usually sleeps. When Boogie has the medication in his system and is going about his usual routine in the house, any new fleas that hatch will not be able to feed on him and thus starve. During this month, you need to be very diligent about cleaning all the fabrics in the house to eliminate the flea egg population. If you have carpet, I would recommend vacuuming at least three times per week. I would recommend washing any bedding that Boogie sleeps on at least twice per week with hot water. This, combined with Boogie's flea prevention, should eliminate fleas over a period of weeks. I know this is a lot of information, but tackling fleas is a big issue that requires a lot of work! I hope you find this helpful! Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Capstar will only kill those fleas that are on the dog and sucking blood once. Getting rid of fleas is relatively easy but entails work for a few months: Unfortunately fleas only hop on the body of your pet when they want to feed, then they hop off again and stay in your pet's environment. So you need to treat all pets in the household as well as the environment (which contains the fleas, their eggs and larvae). Flea treatment:  1) Get some flea medication such as a Flea spray or a spot on from a pet shop or your veterinarian and apply monthly )Bravecto/Nexgard/Seresto will last longer) 2) get flea powder, put some in your vacuum cleaner bag and vacuum your house and furniture and also non-carpeted areas frequently to remove flea larvae and eggs which live off house dust., Dispose of the bag in the trash outside. Hot-wash all the pet's bedding, If you do this diligently for a few months you will get rid of the fleas. Flea products: Spot-ons: Advantage, Advantix Advantage Multi (Advocate in the UK) Frontline (ticks as well) Bravecto/Nexgard spot on (ticks as well) - for cats, in tablet form for dogs Revolution (stronghold in the UK) Tablets: comfortis (will only kill fleas once) Collar: Seresto (ticks as well) House spray: Indoorex Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further. Please take the time to mark this question as helpful or not as it helps us to improve on the quality of our answers to other pet owners. Thank you so much!

Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach! It sounds as if Blitz is becoming re-infested with fleas even after applying appropriate flea preventative measures (i.e. Seresto collar). I would suspect that the environmental control has not yet been adequate to appropriate kill the fleas. I would recommend to my clients to hire a professional parasite control company to perform a treatment for the area (inside and outside). It can take as long as 3 months to adequately control all life stages of the flea life cycle. It is also possible that even though the fleas have been controlled (if you are no longer seeing live adult fleas), that Blitz suffers from a flea allergy. In these cases the itch can last long after the flea is gone. You can continue to bathe Blitz in a soothing shampoo, but if the itch does not resolve it is best to have him seen by his veterinarian to determine what additional anti-pruritic (anti-itch) medication may be needed. It is not uncommon for us to also see secondary bacterial infections (pyoderma) happen due to chronic itching, and a topical medicated shampoo may also be required from his veterinarian.

Hello. I am so sorry for your concerns with Harley. Unfortunately, you must have a terrible flea problem in your area. Everything you are doing is appropriate & good, but it can take 3 months of constant battle to eliminate a current flea problem. Continue the Simparica, & retreat your yard & home as needed. You can bathe Harley weekly with a an anti-itch shampoo, one that contains either 1% hydrocortisone or pramoxine. They also make leave on conditioners & mousse's you might try. Because Simparica ( & all other oral & topical flea products ) require the flea to bite in order to die, you can also use a flea shampoo along with the anti-itch shampoo for an immediate knockdown of the fleas on Harley. I would also consider a injection of Cytopoint, which is immunotherapy that your veterinarian can administer. This will do nothing for fleas, but may help the irritation from the flea bites. Hopefully, this will all help. Thanks for contacting Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.