Flea - Know Your Pet Enemy

• Adult flea - lives on the host animal (dog or cat), where the female lays her eggs.
• Egg - flea eggs are laid on the animal but fall off in to the bedding, carpeting, and elsewhere in the animal's home and hatch in to larvae within a few days (depending on heat & humidity).
• Larva - flea larvae feed on organic material in the environment and on the droppings from adult fleas. I do know it is gross.
• As the larvae feed on adult flea droppings, they are present in highest numbers in areas where flea-infested animals spend much of their time.
• Pupa - after 5-11 days, the larvae produce a cocoon in which they complete their development. In the coursework of this stage of their life cycle, fleas are resistant to flea sprays, shampoos, medications,etc.
• In ideal conditions, adult fleas hatch from their cocoon in as small as five days, although they can live in the cocoon for up to five months.
• Hatching is brought on by vibration, physical pressure, heat, and air; in other words, the your dog walks in the room, sits down and BAMM.
• After hatching, the adult flea finds an animal and within two days the female flea begins producing eggs. Fleas can continue to produce eggs for up to 100 days and think it or not, a single flea can produce thousands of eggs.

I do know the whole idea of fleas and their life cycle is gross and personally if I wasn't confronted with our canines in constant agony taking a look at me with those massive, mournful eyes .. well I'd probably ignore the whole flea thing.

What you do now that you are armed with all this terrific flea knowledge is:
1. Control the fleas on your pet - keep them groomed and use shampoos made for flea control. There's flea medicines that they use in my house. Personally, I prefer "Frontline" because it is a gel and I rub a small dab at the nape of their neck (do canines have a nape?) and the fleas are ousted for thirty days or so. You can also get pills like "Program" that control the fleas by sterilizing any female flea that bites your dog.

2. Keep the pet bedding flea-free. This is probably what I had the most trouble with because I have canines and they don't sleep in actual beds. But, in the event you can keep the fleas off the bedding, blankets, carpeting or whatever area they stake-out as their own space, your battle is much simpler. Some people even studied fleas and they decided that only about 5% of the adult flea population actually live on your dog. That means the other 95% and are living either outside or in the bedding, carpeting and such.