'Tis the season for fleas

June 20, 8:43 PMPhiladelphia Pet Care ExaminerLeah McClellan

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Fleas, fleas, fleas everywhere! In your house, on your dog, all over your cat and even on you. In less than a month, hundreds or even thousands of adult fleas could set up camp in your home and—what's worse—you might not even realize it's happening until it's too late.

All you need is one female flea ready to drop some eggs and a warm-blooded source of food. Where did she come from? She could have decided that your dog would taste better than the neighbor's dog while they had a quick romp in the yard. She might have been hiding in the upholstery of a hand-me-down sofa, or she could have been embedded in that beautiful area rug your aunt gave you. She might have clung to your ankle when you visited a friend with fleas in the house or yard. It's even possible that the gorgeous cat you held in the waiting room at the vet had an extra female flea who got tangled in your sweater and came home with you—and then discovered your cat later on. Fleas can even come from mice or rats (of the non-pet variety) or squirrels out in the yard.

There are many ways to get fleas in the house, and you only need one to get an infestation going. Although fleas have certain conditions that are ideal for them—humid and warm is best—your home can become infested with fleas anytime of the year, even in winter, though it's much more common in summer around the Philadelphia area.

Back to our female flea and her biological clock. If she's already fed (think vampires) she's ready to go. If not, her meal may be blood taken from your ankle or your dog or cat or even a rabbit. Fleas want warm blood, and they're opportunistic, though dogs and cats are much preferred over humans.

In one day, the flea may lay as many as twenty-five eggs or even more. In one week, that's 175 eggs dropped all over the place (the eggs are slippery and don't cling to an animal). Most will wind up on your pet's bedding or favorite sleeping area, which might be your sofa or bed, but they'll also be in rugs and carpets and anywhere your pet has been scratching, shaking, rolling around, or even just passing through. At the end of two weeks, in ideal flea conditions, twenty-five new fleas have completed the life cycle from egg to larva to pupae (cocoon) to adult (think butterflies). The next day, twenty-five more fleas become adults, and so on. Each day, more females are able to feed and lay more eggs and...do the math. Try it with ten or twenty females to start, and see what you come up with. It might be a fun math exercise for the kids, with "exponential" as the vocabulary word of the day.

In just one month, and starting with just one female flea and one dog or cat, you could have a serious problem, and most of it won't be on the dog or cat. Imagine ten fleas, two dogs, and two cats or any other combination of pets. If you're not careful, your home could easily host a million fleas at various life stages in a very short period of time. To complicate matters, an individual flea can live three-four months or longer, and each female is capable of laying hundreds of eggs. They can even hibernate in the pupae stage if there's no food source that stimulates them to emerge (while you and your pets are away on vacation, for example), and then they become active all at once when a food source is suddenly available.

What can you do? Next 2, 3
 
For more info: The life cycle of a flea: Understand fleas so you can get rid of them on your pet and in your house

If you found this article helpful, you might also want to learn about ticks.