Last week Tomas got infested with fleas. Tomas is a very large cat with a round, full face, luminous green eyes that mesmerise and a short coat. Tomas weighs all of eight kilos which, due to his large size, he carries very well. Three years ago, he emigrated from Russia to Malta and is now a permanent resident here.
That Tomas got fleas should come as no surprise, especially at this time of year. But Tomas’s owners were shocked. They lived in a fifth floor apartment, Tomas never went out and never came into contact with other cats.
Because of his seclusion from the outside world, they felt they did not need to provide their cat with flea prevention. And yet, much to their disgust, they spotted a flea on their pristinely white bed linen.
Fleas do not necessarily indicate a lack of hygiene and they can become a problem even in the cleanest homes and on the cleanest pets. The most common way fleas enter the home is by hitching a ride on your dog or cat when it goes outside. But even house-bound pets can end up with fleas when you unknowingly bring them in on your shoes or clothes.
Fleas are possibly one of the most successful insects in modern urbanisation. They are wingless insects with mouthparts very well adapted to piercing skin and sucking blood.
Their bodies are shaped flat to be able to slide through the fur or hair of their hosts, and their legs are built in such a way so as to make them one of the strongest jumpers when compared to the size of their bodies.
There are different species of fleas and they target different hosts. With cats and dogs, it is the ctenocephalides felis or the cat flea which is the most common.
The cat flea’s first preference is always the cat; its secondary preference would be a dog. But they are also capable of infesting rabbits and rodents if this provides them with the necessary nutrition. In extreme cases, they will also attempt to feed off humans.
Just such a story was told to me by a client who visited an apartment which had been vacant for 14 months. Her aunt used to live in this apartment with two cats and no one had been to the apartment since she had vacated the place with her two cats in tow.
Within a few hours of being inside the apartment, my client and her daughters were plagued all over with flea bites. This ability to withstand months of starvation contributes in a big way toward fleas’ resilience.
The flea’s lifecycle takes it through all four potential stages of an insect: the egg, the larva, the pupa and the adult form. This, together with the large number of eggs a female flea can lay in her life span, ensures its successful proliferation. A female adult flea can in ideal conditions lay 5,000 or more eggs in a matter of one or two months.
Fleas then develop from egg to adult form in a few weeks. This explains why, given the right conditions, you can suddenly experience an explosion of fleas within your living environment. Fleas, however, are successful for another reason. While in the pupa stage, they can lie in wait for up to two years, simply for the right conditions to hatch and feed. One right condition could mean the presence of a suitable blood host.
A female adult flea can in ideal conditions lay 5,000 or more eggs in a matter of one or two months
When my client and her daughters visited the vacant apartment, they unwittingly contributed towards creating the right conditions for the fleas to wake from hibernation. The vibration of footfalls in the apartment, as well as their body heat, transmitted the right signals to the fleas; they woke up and emerged from their cocoons. In the absence of their preferred four-legged blood hosts, they made do with human blood and went into a feeding frenzy.
With fleas, prevention is always better than cure. There are a multitude of household situations depending on the number of dogs and cats at home, the place where you live and also the places where your dogs or cats have access to, be they the only pet or one of many.
There are several products to be found on the market and when considering which ones to use, you need to consider tick prevention, as well as sand-fly repellants in the case of dogs. These come in the form of shampoos, sprays, collars, drops, pills and injections, all with different effectiveness, range and mode of action.
The first thing you need to do to check if your dog or cat has fleas is to have a good look by parting the fur, especially in the neck area and base of tail. Apart from looking for adult fleas, you should also be looking for flea dirt, which are tiny specs of flea-digested blood that look like specks of black pepper.
On a black coat, this may not be so simple to spot, so do check out the belly and inguinal area where fur is usually sparse.
Another place that usually gives away the presence of fleas is your pet’s bedding or other areas where your pet likes to sleep, as happened with Tomas’s owners when they spotted a flea on their bed linen. In these places, besides seeing fleas or flea-dirt, you might also see flea larvae which are shaped like a miniscule comma.
Do not assume that your cat or dog does not have fleas because it does not scratch itself. Even though fleas are the most common cause of itching in dogs and cats, there are exceptions.
I have often seen pets that do not scratch and yet are riddled with fleas. These are cases where the infestation could become life-threatening due to the amount of blood absorbed by the fleas, leaving your pet severely anaemic.
The best thing you can do to care for your pet is to use products that are effective. Discussing these preventative measures with your vet means that you will be given the right product, depending on the number and types of pets you have, as well as their environment and lifestyle. Your vet will plan a programme suited to your pet and this will ultimately be more cost-effective for you than hit-and-miss solutions.
And so Tomas had fleas. Even though he had spent a couple of years isolated from these parasites, they did eventually get to him. As he had had no contact with any other dog or cat in the interim, we had to assume that a few flea eggs, larvae or pupae were accidentally transported into the apartment. Tomas is now fully kitted out with the appropriate flea treatment for his lifestyle.
thisweekwiththevet@gmail.com
Dr Martin Debattista is a veterinary surgeon.