Recommended Essential Oils For Fleas & Ticks on Dogs
Great for Repelling Ticks & Soothe Your Pet’s Skin
The aroma will help keep fleas and ticks away. Lavender oil repels ticks and prevents tick eggs from hatching. Lavender oil soothes your dog’s skin and helps prevent infection.
Add 5-10 drops of undiluted lavender essential oil to your dog’s shampoo. Diffuse lavender oil in your home to repel fleas and ticks.
Repels Fleas
The smell of lemongrass oil is unpleasant for fleas. It’s active ingredient (citral and geraniol) acts as a natural repellent.
Add 5 drops of oil to water to mix your own spray, then apply the spray to your pet’s coat. You can also diffuse the oil in your home.
Repels & Kills Fleas and Ticks
Cedar oil is the go-to repellent for many of my friends. It is available for use on dogs and pets or in your home.
Add a few drops of Cedar oil to a carrier oil.
Diffusing Cedar oil will allow the anti-parasitic molecules to be released into the air and kill off any fleas and ticks.
Wound & Antibacterial Healing
Frankincense is a safer and less potent and a great all-around oil to use with your dogs.
Flea Repellant & Helps Heal Flea Bites
Rosemary essential oil tends to irritate more than other oils. A few drops on your dog’s collar and bedding makes a superb flea repellant.
Add 5-8 drops of Rosemary oil to your dogs shampoo to repel fleas and help your dog heal faster.
Add 5 drops of oil to water to mix your own spray, then apply the spray to your pet’s coat. You can also diffuse the oil in your home.
Neem oil Repels Fleas & Ticks
Neem is a natural remedy for a multitude of ailments. You can dilute the neem oil 1:10 with a light carrier oil. Then massage the neem oil into the skin.
You can also add a few drops of Neem oil to your dogs shampoo to repel fleas and ticks. (Bathe 2-3 times a week for best results).
Direct undiluted Rose geranium oil on your dog is okay. Use 1 drop behind each shoulder blade and 1 drop near the base of the tail.
The Dangers of Fleas and Ticks
Fleas and ticks are frequent concerns for pet owners and can be extremely dangerous to dogs. They are parasites, meaning they take root in your dogs skin and suck blood and nutrients from the pup.
Fleas can consume up to 15 times their own body weight in blood, which can cause blood loss and anemia, especially in puppies. If a puppies’ red blood cell count is depleted, it can be life-threatening. Some pets can also have an allergic reaction to fleas called flea allergy dermatitis.
Ticks can also cause blood loss and anemia, but even more dangerously, they carry diseases that can be deadly to your pet. Ticks can spread Lyme disease, which is a bacterial infection that can spread to dogs, cats, humans, and other mammals. Symptoms of Lyme disease can include depression, swelling of the lymph nodes and joints, loss of appetite, fever, and even kidney failure.
If left untreated, flea and tick infestations can be deadly to dogs. Making sure to prevent and treat fleas and ticks ensures healthy pets that live long, happy lives.
Best Oils For Pest Repellent
There are a wide variety of essential oils that naturally repel fleas and ticks, leaving your dog soothed and safe. We’ve broken down a few of the most effective oils for pest repellent below.
Best Essential oils for flees and ticks on dogs?
Lavender oil has many uses and has been valued by people since ancient times. The Romans used lavender to obtain fragrant bath essences, hence the name of this plant. Lavender is derived from the Latin word “lavare” which means “to wash”.
Today the uses of Lavender are many, the young leaves of the plant are used in the kitchen as a spice to refine dishes. The essential oil is used in aromatherapy, in cosmetics as a fragrance, as well as to repel annoying insects.
The True Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), is a flowering scrub in the mint family (Lamiaceae) that was originally native to the Mediterranean. There are different subspecies and cultivars that are grown for different purposes.
Today, the decorative plant is found in many gardens for ornamental purposes as well as a natural deterrent that is supposed to repel insects, wasps, and ticks. Lavender is also commercially grown on large plantations, mainly to extract the essential oils.
All parts of the lavender plant contain essential oil, leaves, stems, and flowers. However, the highest quality lavender oil is obtained from the flowers, where the essential oil content is also the highest. A light touch of the flowers is enough to release the typical lavender scent.
The coveted oil is extracted from the lavender flowers by steam distillation. Flowers and flower stems are exposed to hot steam under high pressure in a steam boiler. The great heat releases the oil from the flowers, which accumulates in the water vapor. The oil-water vapor mixture rises and is deposited on a cooling pipe, the condenser. Because of the different condensation points of oil and water, the water separates from the oil.
Depending on the type of lavender, the lavender oil obtained is colorless or slightly yellowish to slightly greenish in color and has a pleasant, strong smell of lavender.
The main constituents of lavender oil are Linalyl Acetate (25–46%) and Linalool (20–45%), as well as smaller amounts of Terpinen-4-ol, Eucalyptol, Camphor, Limonene, Lavandulol, and Lavandulylacetat.
Linalyl acetate is the main ingredient that is also responsible for its typical fruity flowery scent and is often used as a fragrance for detergents and soaps.
Another dominant ingredient in lavender is Linalool. It is a terpene alcohol, the most important property of which is its antimicrobial and pesticide activity. Linalool is widely used by pest control companies as an indoor insecticide. It is also used in various organic repellents.
Terpinen-4-ol is a chemical compound that occurs naturally in many plants. It is among other compounds, the main component of tea tree oil.
In addition, essential lavender oil contains small amounts of Camphor, which not only has a germicidal effect but is also produced in numerous plants as protection against herbivorous insects
Lavender oil also contains around 200 other ingredients, terpenes, and organic alcohol in very small quantities. How all these ingredients act together, still needs more research to understand how exactly does lavender repel ticks.
If you like to work your garden predominantly organically, you will definitely not want to use synthetic pesticides in the fight against ticks and other pests. A more environmentally friendly approach is much better, after all, you don’t want to expose your family to cancer-causing ins
Using Non-Toxic and organic products such as diatomite or beneficial nematodes, in combination with plant-based alternatives in the form of various fragrant plants that have repelling properties is a sensible alternative.
Lavender is not just a beautiful ornamental plant that looks great with its bright blue, violet, or lilac flowers, it exudes also an intense smell that keeps many bugs and ticks away.
Already in the Middle Ages, people knew about lavender’s properties that keep bugs away. So lavender flowers were sprinkled on the floors and lavender tufts with flowers were placed in cupboards to keep moths and fleas away.
It is the ingredients that make up the lavender essential oil, and their properties and how these in combination interact, that give the lavender oil its diverse beneficial properties. In the case of the deterrent effect on many insects and ticks, it is probably the way they disrupt the metabolism of the insects and in the bugs finding/smelling its potential hosts.
In addition to the ingredients, the concentration and purity of the oil are also decisive for the effect of lavender oil. The purer it is, the stronger its effect. Lavender oil is one of the few essential oils that can be applied directly to the skin in small doses. However, it is usually diluted with alcohol and other carrier oils in lotions and creams for use.