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The Organic Flea Treatment Myth Debunked

There’s a wide variety of different myths surrounding pet care that have continued to spread amongst pet owners, some as old as the’50’s. One of the big ones involves a cure-all “organic” dog flea solution. This flea removal myth comes from the belief that organic practices are somehow more ‘pure’ and sometimes even more effective than any synthetic/non-organic pet product. The organic dog flea solution may also come from the misguided principle that all the currently available flea treatment products are potentially harmful to your pet. After a recent email asking for clarification on whether or not using all organic/natural flea treatments can be an effective alternative to chemical based products we decided to weigh in on the phenomenon.

When first confronting your dogs’ flea problem, you can actually find some success by taking an all out organic attack on the pests, though results will vary dependent on the level of infestation, the breed and health of your pet and also the environment that your pet lives in. Many pet owners think that going organic simply means limiting your options to giving your pet an organic-based flea shampoo bath followed by manually removing fleas from your pet using a comb + brush combo.

If you think that only using organic-based flea products will get rid of your flea problem in just a single treatment or shampoo-bath then you might want to reconsider your options. In some cases limiting yourself to this small window of treatment options can result in worsening the flea problem rather than solving it. Temporarily getting rid of the fleas that are bothering your dog is an easy task that can be achieved in countless ways (baths, sprays, etc..), the main hurdle that you’ll face is making sure that the fleas are gone for good. Relying on regular baths to keep any fleas at bay is simply not a plausible option for most pet-owners. Sometimes using a small amount of non-organic pet products is recommended in conjunction with the initial organic-pet-shampoo remedy. You can find more information on flea treatment products at Flea Treatment Reviews

In order to ensure that the fleas stay away once you’ve given your pet their initial flea-shampoo bath you’ll need to make sure that their living environment is free from any lurking parasites waiting for a second chance to infest your pet. This means cleaning your home from top-to-bottom to make sure that there are no remaining batches of flea eggs and larvae around to re-infest your pet.

Removing the fleas that are bothering your pet is one thing but making sure they stay away from your pet after you’re done is a whole other task. Regularly vacuuming any rugs or carpet in your home will greatly reduce the risk of any re-infestation. You should clean with hot water any bedding that your pet uses, letting it dry in the sun before returning it. Steam cleaning is an option that works best for cleaning any bedding or rugs that they use frequently. Another flea prevention step is to keep a well-maintained lawn. By keeping the grass/hedges low you’ll help stop flea infestations from harvesting where your pet goes to play.

As far as manually removing any visible flea and ticks using a special brush or comb, this will only temporarily help ease any discomfort your pet is going through, it won’t actually prevent it from quickly returning because the larvae and eggs will still be there. Those fine toothed flea combs never really pick up anything smaller than the half-grown bugs. I’d be a fool by not also adding that the amount of effort involved in keeping your pet flea-free by hand really gets tiresome by the third and fourth day of manual flea-removal (Yes, they really can come back that fast without proper treatment). Instead something to try is to add other organic solutions (e.g. applying diatomaceous earth) to prevent the possibility that the fleas will be able to lay any new eggs in combination with the flea-shampoo bath. You can find more information on flea treatment products at Flea Treatment Reviews

For more information on flea treatments and other pet-care questions visit the At Home Flea Control Blog