Flea and tick season has arrived much earlier than usual due to the very wet summer Alabama has endured; however, according to some local veterinarians the problem gets much worse when it comes to making the nuisance go away. September is going to be an itchy mess.
Next week is supposed to be peak season for fleas and ticks but the numbers have been spiking since late June. “Fleas do not jump from one animal to another, that’s not the way that fleas are spread,” according to veterinarian Dr. Kobus. “When a flea gets on your dog or cat that’s home It’s going to set-up housekeeping and it’s going to stay there until it dies. Most people don’t know they have fleas until they start getting bit or a vet tells them.”
Tall grass is the most likely culprit for coming in contact with the pests. They do not like our skin but they will latch onto our clothes and infest our homes. Some local vets are saying fleas are not being affected by medicines found in most of the major brands we shop for at pet stores because of decades of using the products and not being able to completely kill the flea population. “The ones that are more tolerant to the product will go on to reproduce. Their offspring will be further more tolerant to the product with subsequent generations.
According to David Lord of A & A Vacuum Centers with locations in Mobile and Fairhope Alabama, “fleas reproduce pretty quickly so in the course of one summer you can get 40 generations of fleas coming through a property. If you’re using the same product you’re going to get fleas that develop a tolerance to that product.” They can live in the pupa stage in our homes up to a year so sweep and vacuum often for good measure. Lord recommends using flea and tick preventatives early and vacuuming often with a quality vacuum cleaner. We should have begun back in May and continued through November. If our pet already has fleas we need to contact our local vet. It’s important to never use dog treatments on cats.
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