Fleas, Lice and Ticks

Some wag once remarked that the best way to keep a city dog from becoming bored in an apartment was to load him with fleas. That way the dog would be so busy scratching, he wouldn’t have time to complain about being lonesome. The person who made the remark didn’t know much about dogs or fleas. Nor did he know that fleas are not adverse to congregating on and taking bites out of human beings.

In addition to causing skin irritations and irritability, fleas, lice and ticks may also be carriers of disease organisms. In the previous section, we mentioned that the flea is a carrier of tapeworm eggs, as well as microfilariae of heartworms. The flea is also the carrier of organisms causing bubonic plague and endemic typhus fever in man. Lice, while not as common as fleas, are just as dangerous to dogs. Severe infestations of lice have been responsible for the destructions of entire litters of puppies. They are also known carriers of the organism causing typhus fever, trench fever and relapsing fever in human beings. Ticks, once regarded as strictly rural pests, are now well distributed throughout the United States, in cities and suburbs as well as rural sections. Ticks are known carriers of organisms causing piroplasmosis in dogs and Rocky Mountain spotted fever and tularemia in man.

This is an impressive array of diseases carried by these pests, not to mention the misery and cost of eradication. Fortunately, fleas, lice and ticks can be controlled. Your main e fforts should be directed toward destroying the life cycle of these parasites, as well as eradicating them from the dog.

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