Canine flea control — what the veterinary nurse needs to know

Routine flea control should be included as part of any general health protocol for dogs and is an essential part of the ongoing management of dogs with pruritic skin disease. In order to be able to advise on suitable ectoparasiticides, it is important that the veterinary nurse has an appreciation of the life cycle of the cat flea (the principal flea to affect the dog) and the speed of action and persistence of the most common of the licensed veterinary products that can be used as part of an integrated control programme.

The cat flea, Ctenocephalides felis, belongs to the Order Siphonaptera and the Family Pulicidae. Despite its name the cat flea is recognised as the most common and important ectoparasite of domesticated dogs worldwide (Dobler and Pfeffer, 2011; Rust, 2017). A study in the UK recruited 662 dogs from 326 practices and found that 14.4% of dogs were infested and of those fleas 90% were cat fleas (Abdullah, 2019). Fleas are ubiquitous and exposure if difficult to avoid (Figure 1). Numerous reviews on the biology of C. felis have been published over the last 20 years (Dryden and Rust, 1994; Rust and Dryden, 1997; Blagburn and Dryden, 2009; Dryden et al, 2011; Iannino et al, 2017) and the reader is referred to these for a more in-depth description of the flea life cycle.