Video Transcript

I wanted to talk a little about flea control in your puppy. In most areas of the country but especially in our area Santa Barbara is a very, very difficult area to control fleas. We don't think about it this way but the fleas actually need very specific conditions in order to mature. That means they have to have the right amount of humidity and the right amount of heat for there eggs to hatch out. This picture depicts your rug and what you may see in your rug if you had a microscope. These are the eggs and these are the larvae that have hatched. The eggs are incredibly resistant to everything. They are resistant to heat and a lot of the products we use to try and control fleas, so the eggs can just lay in your carpet, dormant for up to eight months at a time. When the right conditions come along and then eggs hatch out and so I did want to talk a little bit about that life-cycle. After the larvae hatch the larvae eats a lot of the debris that is in your environment, dander that falls off your dog and some of the actual flea dirt that comes off of your dog and then they hatch out and become a flea they jump on to your dog and get a blood meal and then they got through the same cycle again. There are several products available that try and break this cycle, and here is another example of the flea, and the eggs and the larvae and all are theses eggs are how the process begins and the cycle goes this way (pointing up), actually were these are the larvae and these are the pupae that again are incredibly difficult to control and then they become a flea. One flea can lay so many eggs and this is why we really want to stay on top of this process because you seem like you have no problem today but if the right conditions hit you can have an infestation of fleas all over your house. Some dogs are not bothered too much by the fleas but what some people do not realize that is if enough fleas bite your dog, your dog can actually become anemic. If a flea bites your dog, not only can the dog itch were the flea bit them they can itch over their whole body for up to seven days just from one flea bite, if your dog is one of those dogs that just happen to be really allergic to flea bites. Flea control is very important and I think one of the things we have to decide for you is if your dog is going to be mostly a house dog? Or is your dog going to be going to the beach and traveling around a lot? There are different ways to control the fleas depending on where your dogs going to be. We talked about medications such as Sentinel the oral medication, so if your dog was actually going to stay indoors all the time and maybe just go out to go the bathroom and then come back in, you may not need to do anything more than Sentinel. The way Sentinel works for your dog is that for every flea that bites your dog becomes sterile and they lay sterile eggs. They will lay eggs, but their eggs will not hatch out, so it is almost like birth control for fleas. Now, if you are one of these very active people who go out and about and go traveling with your dog and you take your dog everywhere, certain times of the year mostly in the summertime you?ll pick up hitchhikers as we call them and those are fleas that are biting your dogs and if you see enough of those you might want to add another medication topically during that time of year. We have several different ones, Frontline will work, we also have Advantage and it is also compatible with the product that we are having orally here. So it depends a little bit on lifestyle, where you live and where you take your dog on what level of flea control you are going to have to do.