Flea treatment

It is essential to treat both your pet and your home, as fleas can survive in the environment without a host for many months.

Visit your vet for advice on the best products to treat your pet and your home.

Clean bedding regularly and vacuum furniture, floors and skirting boards thoroughly to help destroy fleas at each stage of their life cycle.

Throw away the dustbag from your vacuum after each use to prevent any flea eggs and larvae from developing.



Only give your pet flea treatment that has been recommended for it, ideally as prescribed by a vet for your individual pet.
Products suitable for one species may not be suitable for another; for example dog flea treatments contain permethrin, an insecticide that is safe for use on dogs but which is highly toxic to cats.

Irritable host

Not only can flea bites make your pet uncomfortable and itchy but they can also bring a host of other problems...

Pets can be hypersensitive to flea saliva and suffer an allergic reaction.

Fleas feed on blood, so young or frail animals can become weak and even die as a result of blood loss.

Flea larvae can become infected with tapeworm eggs. If your pet eats an infected flea when grooming it can also become host to this parasite. If your pet has fleas you should also make sure your pet is treated for worms.

Fleas can also pass diseases to your pets. For example, myxomatosis is a serious disease in rabbits which can be spread by fleas.

Flea facts

Fleas are a type of external parasite. There are different species of fleas, such as dog fleas, cat fleas, rabbit fleas and human fleas, although many species of fleas can infest more than one host species.

Fleas are blood-sucking parasites as adults only. Adult fleas have mouthparts which are adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood from their host.

A flea can live from between 14 days to one year.

A female flea can lay up to 50 eggs per day and 1,500 in a lifetime.

Some types of flea can leap more than a hundred times their own body length!

Regular flea treatment will help reduce the chances of your cat or dog getting tapeworms.

It is estimated that 95 per cent of flea eggs, larvae and pupae live in the environment – on beds, rugs, carpets and sofas - not on your pet.

You can prevent fleas becoming a problem by regularly treating both your pet and your home. This may need to be done all year round if your home is centrally heated.

I have used Advocate on Tonks since she was a puppy and now use it on Remus. They both have very short hair and I've never found a flea on either of them since I started using it. It is also a wormer and prevents Demodex. Have a feeling it does ticks too.

Advocate does not work for ticks but luckily for me Frontline Plus works on Pereg and it does do ticks as well as fleas. As she sleeps on my bed I do not want either fleas or ticks joining me! But I use it every month on the 1st of each month, except for December and February.