By Endsmeet Animal HospitalVets on PetsFleas are the most common parasite of both dogs and cats in Bermuda causing a variety of health problems ranging from itchy skin to potentially fatal anaemia. The adult flea feeds only on blood which it obtains by biting the skin of its host (dog or cat). Each flea then lays about 20 eggs a day these eggs are too small to be seen with the naked eye and are not sticky allowing them to easily fall off the animal.After a few days the eggs hatch into larvae which like to avoid sunlight keeping to dark places like sand, cracks, crevices and bedding. One to two weeks later the larvae hatch into adult fleas that jump back onto a passing dog or cat and start the whole cycle off again. This life cycle means that for each flea you find on your pet there are many more developing in the surrounding environment which depending on where your pets spend a lot of their time can be your carpets, sofa or even in your bed. Fleas also multiply a lot more quickly when it is hot and humid making them more of a problem in Bermuda in the Spring and Summer.When fleas bite a dog or cat they cause a swollen, itching spot (similar to a mosquito bite) which can remain inflamed for up to several weeks. Animals will attempt to remove the fleas by biting and scratching in the vicinity of the spots causing a loss of fur and often resulting in skin infections. Fleas prefer to live on top of the animal’s back and seem to concentrate nearer to their tail.This means you should be very suspicious that your pet has fleas if they are itchy, lose fur or develop a skin infection over the back half of their body especially if it is on the top of their back near their tail base. The fleas themselves can be hard to spot but if you back comb the fur you can often find small black flecks of flea faeces, this consists of dried blood and if you pick it up with wet tissue paper it will dissolve and turn red.Although in most animals fleas are just an ongoing annoyance a significant number of dogs and cats are allergic to flea saliva. In these animals even a single flea bite can cause intense itchiness, widespread skin infection and occasionally either mouth or skin ulcers to appear. Fleas can also be a serious problem to very small animals, especially kittens and puppies, where the amount of blood they remove can cause a life threatening anaemia. As well as the problems they cause by themselves fleas also can spread other diseases and parasites the most common of which is tapeworm.Prevention of fleas involves either just treating the pet or treating both the pet and the environment. In the old days the commonest way of getting rid of fleas was to give your pet a flea bath, this would be effective at killing the fleas on the animal but had a poor residual action and since the vast majority of fleas live in the surrounding environment. If this is the case, the day after bathing your pet new mature fleas jump back on your pet! About 20 years ago various residual action flea products started to appear with new ones continuing to pop up ever since. They work in a variety of different ways but as a general rule consist of a medication which you either feed to your pet or apply to their skin, usually monthly.These residual action products completely revolutionised flea control as even weeks after they were given any flea which jumped on the pet would die within 24 hours. Flea infestation in most family pets became a thing of the past. Unfortunately over the last few years fleas have become resistant to some of these products making them a lot less effective than they used to be. The final form of flea control is treatment of the environment which involves either using an insecticidal spray or letting off flea bombs (insecticidal mists) inside the house. Treating the environment can be very effective as it kills the flea larvae as well as adult fleas and is still frequently recommended as part of a flea control strategy especially for animals with a lot of fleas. Talk to your veterinarian about solutions for your pet.