Health

How to Protect Your Pets From Ticks and Fleas

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 31, 2002 / 8:44 AM EST / CBS

For pet owners, spring is the perfect time of year to begin a regimen of flea and tick prevention. Keeping those pests in check can keep your dog or cat healthy and happy. Dr. Jim Humphries, DMV, a leading authority on veterinary care, offers us some great information on new treatments for fleas and ticks as well as Lyme disease.

Protect your dogs and cats from ticks and fleas. With spring come pesky parasites that dog our pets. Fleas and ticks will be especially bad this year because of a mild winter in some parts of the country and moisture-laden ground in other areas. Fleas and ticks carry disease and cause constant scratching and can even bite us.

Can we really cure fleas and ticks?

I didn't think I'd ever say this, but, yes, we can. Just a few years ago, flea and tick control was a laborious and expensive process involving sprays, bombs or foggers, collars, powders, lots of chemicals, and it had to be done almost weekly in some areas of the country. Now, I am happy to report that we can get these parasites under serious control, and in some cases completely get rid of them!

How can you do that?

Modern chemistry has given us several new compounds that simply and effectively kill fleas, most of the time before they even have time to bite. Here are three examples: Advantage, Frontline, and Revolution.

These compounds work simply with a few drops placed on the back of a pet's neck. The compounds then spread in the oil layers of the skin and stay on the skin. When the flea hops on, it is coated with the compound and dies within hours.

In the case of ticks, the new treatments work the same way but you have to make sure you have a product that is labeled to work on ticks. Also the tick needs to die and fall off within about 24 hours to prevent the transmission of tick-borne diseases.

So you just use these treatments, and flea control is done?

In most cases that's true. Where you have an intense flea or tick population, you will probably also want to undertake some form of environmental control too. That would be a yard spray for outdoor use or a fogger treatment if you have them in your house. But these spot type treatments are so effective that if they are applied every 30 days, your pets will be flea and tick free!

This is true in both dogs and cats?

Yes, they work on dogs and cats, puppies and kittens 8 to 10 weeks of age or older.

Now it's important to control ticks because they can transmit some serious diseases. Tell me about a new blood test that can detect Lyme disease within minutes.

Primarily, we are concerned about Lyme disease. As you know, that is a disease we humans cannot get from our dogs, but it comes from the same source--ticks.

There were 16,000 human cases of Lyme last year, and it is estimated that there are about ten cases that go unreported for each case actually diagnosed!

Lye disease in dogs is even more underdiagnosed because the early symptoms are subtle and there has not been a good test. Up until now, Lyme disease testing was inaccurate and the results took days.

Now veterinarians have a new test called the Snap 3DX test, which gives results on heartworm, Lyme, and another serious tick disease within minutes. This is going to help millions of dogs that have Lyme disease get treatment early so that it does not progress to severe problems, which it can when it is left untreated.

Besides tick control, is there anything else we can do to prevent Lyme disease in our dogs?

Yes! We now have a vaccine for Lyme disease. Not every dog needs this, but it is highly recommended in the states where the Lyme disease tick is found.

Your veterinarian knows what is needed in your case and in your part of the country. With these advances, it is more important than ever for you to visit the animal hospital.