coming up on the fall report keeping your pets flea free is important for a variety of reasons right guys dr. Marci Kirk from Albin Animal Hospital and Mattoon and Charleston will be here this week to tell us everything we need to know about flea control that's coming up so stay tuned welcome to the paw report i'm your host Kate Pleasant today we're talking about fleas kind of a common problem with some household pets and something we definitely need to prevent I'm here with dr. Marci Kirk from Albin Animal Hospitals in Mattoon and Charleston thanks for joining me today oh thanks for having me and first of all do you just want to tell us in general kind of about fleas yeah I think that you know fleas are a big problem that we are seeing a lot of people kind of forgot about it because we had good products that were out and really helping them but we've seen a definite increase and they're a little tiny parasite that basically feed on blood and most warm-blooded animals so you know your dogs your cats things like that and they sucked the blood and then they multiply a female flea can lay up to 40 eggs a day oh that's a lot yeah so it can become a big problem very quickly so it is something that you know we want to get under control and you know really be aggressive about preventing because once they get settled in your house you know I can become a major issue sure because it's you know once they're on your dog that can be carried into your house right and what it wasn't that they like why do they stick around on our animals yeah and that's a really good question and nobody knows the exact answer because there is a definite preference for the animal over the the human right as I say because you don't really hear about people having yeah so unless there's a really heavy infestation we don't usually hear people saying that they have flea bites and that's an excuse we hear a lot of well that my dog doesn't have fleas because I don't have any flea bites or you know I get mosquito bites all the time so I would get the flea bite but they really truly prefer the animal but nobody really knows why so and you know just because you don't see them doesn't mean they're not there because if you think about our pets they groom very regularly so what you're going to be looking for is evidence of the fleas which is going to be you know your dog just suddenly walking in turns around and bites at its rear end really quickly that might be a sign that something you know has been it and they may ingest it then and you know a lot of times they'll be very itchy and red and kind of lose some hair because they're chewing it themselves quite a bit right but like I said a lot of times we even can't find a lively on them but there is what we call flea dirt mm-hmm which is little black specks that will be on their fur and that's basically flea poop which is blood so you know that's another sign that we kind of look for on on the animals to let us know if that's if it's just an allergy or maybe we got a flea issue go around and when should you contact your veteran or take your animal in when is it immediately when you suspect flees or I think it's a really good idea to talk to your veterinarian because I you know we every time we see a pet especially new puppy or something like that we try to talk about flea prevention and things like that so it doesn't get settled into your environment right so we can kind of nip it in the bud right away but if you suspect flees I would definitely talk to your veterinarian maybe set up an appointment because there are a lot of choices out there on flea Prevention's you know and we want to make sure you have the right one for your animal so it's really important to work with your veterinarian because the market is flooded with all kinds of choices and some are good some you know don't work as well and some can even be hazardous so it's really important to check with your veterinarian before you put anything on on your pet and you know we see a lot of you know flea collars and things like that and for the most part those work right where they're at you know but I was gonna make your question cuz ya think you know people think that it works over the whole body no I yeah I just focuses on that one area so yeah the dog does it have fleas there but I'll you know there might be some further back and by the same with shampoos you know they may kill the fleas that on them but as soon as that dog goes or cat you know goes right back outside they're just gonna get reinvested there's no lasting protection so that's why we really focus on you know prevention so that you don't have to worry about you know treatment because a la pipa like well I have hardwood floors so they can't really set up shop but right they can live in the cracks of the houses and things like that and you know obviously your house is very well regulated temperature wise er so that's a great area for them to thrive all year so if they set up shop you know early on and you know we have a hard winter they're still in your house measure you know so yeah and is it the case if you maybe have one animal has please you have other animals do they jump because you always hear about fleas jumping yeah yeah and it's pretty impressive you know when we see him and we try to get them off the animal you know they're jumping all over the bride sorry to catch him you know cuz we don't want to put them back on the animal right but yeah and that's that's another thing it's really important is they get on the animal usually they pick them up in the environment somewhere and you know dog goes outside they pick it up and they come in and they can spread it to any of the animals in the house you know and actually as thick as the fleas have been they've kind of been hitchhiking on people's pant legs real eggs oh so we don't notice them and then you're bringing them in as well because we'll have people that have insight only cats they never ever go outside and they are covered with fleas and they're like well hi that happened and I said it's just been so thick lately that they're coming in on you they don't wanna be on you so they on there well I'd like to said they multiply multiply multiplies yeah and so it only takes you know one and then it can become a big issue very quickly right is there certain seasons for fleas I assume we should treat our animals all year long yeah I like to recommend year-round treatment first of all I don't want the fleas in my house I don't want to deal with them so I I just keep my animals on a year-round it used to be you know when we had a first hard frost you could lay off the flea prevention and start up when it started getting warm again but if you remember last year it was very warm and unseasonable amorim it was strange winner yeah so we saw fleas up until the week before Christmas I was you know and not just one or two I mean infestations so it's I think it's really important to go year round but the typical seasons are the warm times of year right and actually you know there are four stages of the life cycle okay and so a lot of the products you know our target one or two but freezing is the only thing that kills all of them okay so we need really hard for us to get rid of them and and really be done with that so to be safe though treat your animals yeah because like we talked about they can set up shop in your house so even though it's cold outside there may not be any outside but if they were there you know a few months ago they can hibernate so you know hatch out and they've got this animal that maybe not on preventative anymore because it's cold out mm-hm it's a perfect host for them okay and so what is it that's dangerous about fleas to pets well so if you know what are to flee state they suck a little blood you know that's not a big issue but when you get heavy infestations they can actually suck so much that your pet can become anemic where they're not they don't have enough red blood cells anymore which then your red blood cells what's carry oxygen and you know energy and things like that and so they become very weak and they can die from it which you know didn't used to be too much of an issue but here you know lately we've had kind of an upswing of fleas because we didn't kill them off in the winter and you know they're there are you know some instances where they can carry some diseases but we don't see that too often it's usually the anemia that we can we have an issue with the other thing that they do if your pet and Jessa flea they can get tapeworms okay so that's the cause of that I did yeah so they they get those from ingesting the flea and it looks like you know a lot of times people call my dog has worms and what do they look like right it'll be like little pieces of rice okay or if they're on your floor and they get dried out they look like sesame seeds you know so and that basically it's usually not fatal but it's cosmetically know nobody likes to see worm yeah that's kind of gram and they can also lose a little bit of weight because the worms are stealing nutrients from the animal that they should be using so and that and that's easily treated you know call your veterinarian is a get some good to know tablets and it takes care of now if you don't get the fleas under control I can just get reinfected and takes about three weeks to show up again so it's not that the pill didn't work it's that you know the infestation was never completely right right so we got to wipe it out okay and what would you say is you know how do you know if your pet has fleas I know you said there's flea dust and things like that and then the pets looking you know maybe but can you examine a pet at home you know can you look for certain things yeah so I mean what we usually do and it's much easier on lighter dog so as you can see things a little bit redder but what we usually do is kind of take our hands and just run them look at their beck and that pulls the hair part and you can maybe see something KY scamper across and if you see movement there's probably I've actually seen that before yeah a bug there or we'll look for those little you know black dots I was talking about and if you're not sure if it's dirt or a fleet flea dirt you can put a little bit of water on it and flea dirt will turn red be really wide okay um so you know that that blood a little yeah you know so we use a lot of times people don't believe us that their pet has fleas and we find flea dirt not a lively I'll put some on a little piece of gauze and put some water on it's like you know this isn't just normal dirt this is Liars in the blood yeah okay so that's another they can look for and you know another Eric good areas where there's not a lot of hair so on their belly shirt area so that's a good place to kind of look too but for the most part they tend to centralize around the tail base so that's a really good place to start looking okay and what is the treatment for say your home because we know there's treatments for the animals we can put drops or pills or things like that but what's the treatment for your home when yeah so it depends on the type of you know homie are dealing with in the amount of infestation that you have there are bombs and sprays and again you'd want to talk to your veterinarian see if they know of the product see if it's safe read the instructions carefully because some of them you got to clear the house out for four hours it's a day or so but if it's a really heavy burden i really recommend working with a professional cuz like i said i don't want to deal with it I want to test done all right yeah and a lot of them will have guarantees to where you know we're going to spray once if they come back in a certain amount of time we're going to come back and we're going to spray again because again depending on what medication they're using it may not get all of the life cycle so you could have a hatch out another big thing is washing all of the bedding and everything in warm water and vacuuming vacuuming and dumping the bag out somewhere else or dumping your thing you know we're literally there to catch out again so it really in and actually the the vacuuming can cause a hatch out so you might want to vacuum then again and get those slept ups okay so you see it becomes a very vicious cycle so prevention is significantly much easier so that would be definitely the key it's preferable right right and so what is the process like when someone comes in and they say you find fleas where does it go from there how does it work so you know we talked about what products gonna be best for their lifestyle we take into consideration you know cuz like you said there's topical there's pills now and they all work you know really well so but it's really important to again talk to your veterinarian before applying anything or giving anything to your pet right and you know so then if you want to give a bath or something like that depending on the product you use that might determine when you're going to use the correct so like topicals if you give a bath you need to wait a couple days before you put it on because otherwise we're going to lose its effectiveness and then you know might want to treat the secondary symptoms of itching so depending on your animal that might be an antihistamine that might be a steroid you know do it either are while the flea medication you know comes into effect right we've had really good success stories that you know people they were using a certain product and you know maybe wasn't content we switched and they said within 30 minutes to an hour they really noticed an improvement so if you get them on the preventative you'll hopefully start seeing results very quickly right so okay what about flea baths and flea dip you know I know its lead dipping used to be a big thing I don't know it's still a thing I haven't had animal fleece in a long time yeah it's still something that is does not as common I I would say now that we have you know back I think it was about 30-40 years ago when the topical product started come you know hitting the market or like you've been some of the oriole ones flea dips and shampoos and things like that kind of went to the wayside because these were so much more effective right the drugs in those products are a little bit older so they're probably not quite as safe as the ones we have now because they've gone through all the tests but they're also older so we see a little bit of resistance so I you know we don't see that used quite as much I mean they're still available and again I would call your veterinarian before pursuing something like that but we tend to stick with things that are you know newer so we don't get that resistance okay and is that kind of been a trend I mean it's like you know we talk about antibiotic resistance in people has there been drug resistance in fleas I think so especially because we've had those mild winters so they're not dying off so then we're using the same product over and over and over again and you know if they're not dying right away they do breed some resistance I mean that's that's what any parasite is going to do they're going to you know get into a situation and they're going to try to adapt around it so that's why it's you know again if you're using a product and you just don't feel it's working we might want to switch to a different one and try something else just to you know give it a fresh sure starter you try added I guess I'd say so so this is definitely something though that people should consult their veterinarians about any time they have doubt yeah absolutely i mean because you can't you can go into you know a supermarket and you can purchase a product but it may not be the best option for your patent it may not be fully safe you know it's not that anyways trying to hurt it but it may not just be a good option for you in your head sure well while we're talking about fleas are there are other types of conditions that should require treatment you know whether topical or anything like that that our kind of common in pets yeah well I mean you got tix right better you know and we've been seeing an upswing of those as well so you know that's something that you definitely want to talk to your veterinarian about and you know allergies and things like that and it can be itchy so there are other things besides fleas that it could be but you want to make sure when you're dealing with an itchy dog there are things you can control you can control please like parasites you can control their food but you can't really put them in a bubble and just know they have to go outside yeah so you know you're gonna work if you have an itchy dog it may not necessarily be fleas but you're gonna want to work with your veterinarian to figure out what kind of you know treatment and what options are best for you sure okay and you know what if you I know a common thing that people see with animals that then itching is licking their paws is that you know is that something that's kind of compulsive is that something that's maybe a side effect of something else I think I mean I don't know for sure but i think you know their paws or what is hitting the grass and everything so that's what's going to pick up all the contaminants from weeds you know seeds and things like that so i really feel that they're going to be the first place that they're probably itchy and it's an easy access area I mean they're just laying there and they can just you know lik threw it away right so if your dog is really itchy and its paws something that you can try is using a damp cloth or a hypoallergenic baby wipe when they come in and just getting that surface contamination off okay it's not going to treat anything but it could take some of that grass and things are exposed as you all in or do not ever tell me you had it'll take it off of there at least that's not sitting there all day you know causing inflammatory a cursor crime but yeah that's a very common area that that they will chew at and a lot of times you'll notice cuz it's darker color that's from the staining in their in their saliva okay so that's kind of how you know I have white dog so I can show that because they're they almost get kind of red they get red feet or red forever you know yeah so and let's and people you know panic about that but a lot of times it's just the staining for okay from there and what is over that causes that coloring it's the porphyrin that's the same thing when you get white dogs that kind of have the your state yeah there's a poor friend in their tears and the fur kind wicks it down there I and it stains but you don't notice any like black dogs right like white dogs it's pretty obvious very prominent yeah I have two little white dog so it's immediately prominent yeah I would assume too if you have a dog that's you know bitten the hair off of an area that maybe that's an indication of something yeah yeah broken hairs and things like that means I've been chewing you know we want to get to the root of why they've been chewing which could be fleas allergies you know anything like that or or even you know an injury yeah right um but yeah broken hairs cuz they're you know they said they'd only just you know not on it so what about hot spots is that is that a thing yes yeah and that's from a dog that just won't leave it alone they're just looking like and I get it moist and then the moisture allows bacteria to overgrow and becomes ulcerated and then they're licking it because it still itches and burns but it hurts and the king and they can go from pinpoint overnight in the owners you know they're swearing I've never if it wasn't there and right and I seen him but you know they explode you know really that big huh yeah so that takes a little bit more aggressive treatment than just like an itchy dog you're not gonna require a lot more in depth but it can happen very very quickly from and it can start with a bug bite it could start with you know a little poke of some sort you know they're outside you know right they get rid of these distant fence whatever the gas so that requires a little more in depth treatment it's still fixable and I okay a lot of times they end up with those goofy little cones is a ona treatment for ya yeah because you really want to break that cycle because obviously their mouths are dirty right and then they're licking and introducing you know bacteria and so a lot of times you on that end up on some topical treatment and and things of that people always ask you can I put some neosporin something on it and you can but a lot of times in dogs they're like something greasy is on my hair so I'm gonna lick it even more so they end up licking it off yeah it's just kind of went counterproductive to what we're trying to accomplish I have actually used topical things we have a dog that constantly gets hot spots and I put socks on him yeah my own sock or a baby sock or something on his feet does that'll at least stop it broke yeah I mean you want to allow some air to it but when you're not home you know covering up writings if it's on their back you know will recommend you know tiny t-shirt on it and just something to break the cycle but a lot of times they end up with the with the code and what about hot spots pray I know you can buy that you know your local grocery store or your pet store is that something you'd recommend from over the counter is it still you need to consult your violent results of better next I don't know what a lot of those products have in it you know and so we would one know so at least call before you start using because it made it may not be harmful at all right but it might also be something that's not gonna work right I mean it's just you know it's I could hurt your pet but it may not help it may just be something that you're doing for nothing right and we did I definitely I me I used sprays a lot whenever I am because it absorbs lot quicker than an ointment so they're not gonna lick it off right I think it starts working very very quickly and it helps because the key is gonna be drying it out cuz I'll moist and yucky right and they write so you're gonna want to dry it out so i think that's that's really and that's another reason not to you know really compact it and cover it up because I'm which is just gonna sit there and just gonna keep spreading right now it's drying it out as what you says it's right so right what is the course of treatment for a hot spot like at the veterinarian's office what do you do so what I usually do is I want to shave the area cuz I want to see how far the redness extends because even though they've lost probably hair and scabbed in one area it probably extends pretty far and that allows us access to see it and then we give it a good scrub you know moving at my bacteria off there we want to get all that taken care of and then a lot of times you know we'll do the caller a lot of times we'll do some oral antibiotics possibly some oral steroids or histamines and then the spray I really like the spray and and it does burn the first couple times you do excedrins ulcerated right after that it's very soothing it really dries it out and I think it speeds up the healing process so kind of hit it from all directions a lot of times okay so you know we've been talking about fleas and things just to recap because we're going to run down on time here pretty soon but you kind of recap for us what we need to look for and what we need to do about fleas foreign [ _ ] well i think you know if you see an itchy dog you know you need to start thinking fleas or something like that just in the forefront of your mind so you don't forget about all right and I think it's really important to talk to your veterinarian make an appointment if you are concerned about it and you know think about really keeping your pet on me around preventative so it doesn't become an issue because it can like we talked about quickly get out of hand and become a serious issue they're not that serious in the most for the most part but if it gets out of hand it can go downhill very quickly and you've seen some bad cases yeah recently you know we've seen an overrun of fleas and that's what happens is you know you get more than one animal so they're all contributing they're all producing more fleet more fleas and you know they can die I had one I did lose a patient you know two fleas and it's not something you know that happens very often but when it's your pet I mean it's preventable condition and I mean people don't think of maybe fleas as being deadly but i guess the vixa gets out hey light sources obviously the younger and older or more susceptible but I you know I've seen it and it's it's out there so it's definitely I think prevention is is the key mm-hmm and I'm sure have you had animals come in where it's just like they're jumping off the animal you can see them and yep absolutely and then you know you we've had him especially our groomer too she rinses them down and the waters red I mean it's just and it's not it's the flea dirt and stuff isn't like it's actively bleeding but that you know I think that blood used to be in your animal right now it's coming out because they are sucking it out so okay well dr. Marci Kirk we thank you for coming on the paw report today and talking about fleas so we appreciate you coming and we're about that time for today are you thank you very much thank you if you're a veterinarian trainer groomer specialist rescue organization or shelter that would like to partner with the paw report by providing expert guests for the show or animals to be featured on our adoptable pet segment please contact us by emailing KF pleasant at eiu edu or call 5816 960 or if you have a topic you'd like to see on the show or questions for our experts contact us with those two get its pants down for the count you have a video or photo of your pet doing something funny or absolutely adorable we'd love to share it with our viewers here at the paw report email it to me Kate's at KF pleasant at eiu edu and you can see it on our show just make sure it's a video taken by you or that you have permission to share for more information about how to get that video or photo to us email me or call us at 5816 960 you service animals are helping injured servicemembers transition into a new life Jeremy young was shot 12 times serving in the US military he's among the soldiers being treated at the VA hospital in San Antonio Texas therapy dogs at the poly trauma center helped the wounded warriors mentally and emotionally as they're being treated for their physical injuries another of those men is Jordan Cisco who was injured by an improvised explosive device it was just amazing you know she just came right off things just started looking my face you know might have been something good that I ate lunch or something but they don't care that I have you know I don't have any legs you know I don't have a left thumb you know to specially trained dogs are now on the job at the audio feed Veterans Hospital poly trauma center one of them is also an amputee having lost a leg in a traffic accident that's pet news you can use did you know full episodes of the paw report are on YouTube they can be accessed at youtube.com/weiutv then just go to the paw report playlist and select the episode you want to see more information about the show is also available twenty-four-seven on our website at wtiu net under the television tab you all right ready hey guys well you look over there ready 3 2 okay Toby look hooked up put the beat you see where me okay ready 321 right go boy go bowling come on one toe