With COVID-19 dominating the news, pet owners may have forgotten that now is the time to protect pets against fleas and ticks. To remind and educate your clients about protecting their pets from the risk of flea infestations, tapeworm, Lyme disease, and other tick-borne diseases, here are ten did-you-know facts that you can share with pet owners on your practice social channels:
Fleas
- Fleas are flightless insects that jump onto hosts to feast on blood.
- A female flea can consume 15 times its body weight in blood each day.
- The average flea has a lifespan of two to three months. With an ample food supply, an adult flea can live up to 100 days.
- A female flea can lay about 2,000 eggs over the course of its life, and lay eggs within 35 to 48 hours of its first blood meal.
- Fleas can carry several diseases, and act as hosts for the flea tapeworm (Dipylidium caninum), one of the most common tapeworms for dogs and cats.
Ticks
- Ticks are members of the arachnid family (which includes spiders, scorpions, and mites).
- Ticks begin seeking a blood meal (or “questing”) when temperatures rise above 4 degrees Celsius (39 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Ticks cannot jump or fly. They find a blood meal by crawling to the tips of grasses and shrubs and latch onto passing animals or people.
- The black-legged tick (widely distributed across Canada and the U.S.) is the most common carrier of Lyme disease.
- Female ticks lay between 3,000 to 6,000 eggs during their life.
For more educational material to remind and educate your clients about protecting pets from fleas and ticks and the diseases they can carry, download your free Flea + Tick Prevention Kit, which includes:
- An educational ClientEd handout for your clients that you can print or email
- A printable poster for your clinic
- Two social media images that you can post to Facebook to further educate your clients around the importance of flea and tick protection.
