Is there anything more unpleasant for a cat than being full of fleas? Being as obsessed as we are with our hygiene, having fleas running around over our backs is not something we find pleasing. If your see that your kitty’s skin is irritated or that your cat’s scratching more than usual, do something about it – don’t let your cat have fleas.
I imagine you’re aware of the fact that fleas are able to jump extremely long distances for their size, thanks to their having a hard body covered with spines pointing backward, they are able to navigate fast through animal fur. Besides, these little bugs are happy as can be in our homes, full of food and space for reproducing while they delight in sticking us with their stingers and injecting us with decoagulating substances along with their saliva so as to be able to suck the more of our blood the better.
It’s not always easy to detect when we cats are infected with fleas, but when these little bugs feed on our blood, they usually irritate our skin, and so if you see your cat intent on scratching certain places, you should suspect that fleas are giving your cat a hard time. Another way of detecting whether your cat has fleas is to give their skin a very close going over. If you see little bites or reddened areas, that’s because a flea has been around there.
You should pay special attention to our necks, ears, around our eyes, our tail and back legs, since those are the areas where fleas have it the easiest to get to the bloodstream. Besides, you can always run your hand over our coat to check to see whether we have any flea dirt (little black dots in our hair) to then get going and disinfect us.
The first thing you should do to get rid of our fleas is bathe us with a good anti-parasitic cat shampoo and then dry us off, comb us with a fine-toothed comb to get rid of the largest number of fleas possible. The second step consists of putting a collar on us, using a spray, pipette or suitable flea control lotion – we’ll leave that up to you to choose – although I have to say that I’m partial to the pipette, since it has a very long-lasting effect and it’s not necessary for you to slather anti-parasitic liquid all over us.
The third and last step is to clean our environment thoroughly, given that flea eggs can be hiding in any corner and, when they grow to adulthood, they’ll be back jumping on us. Wash pillows, bedcovers and other garments with which we usually come into contact and apply insecticide throughout the entire house, focusing special attention on those places our cat visits the most.
