Does My Dog Have Sand Fleas?
If your dog is vacationing at the beach, lives on the beach, or visits the beach often it is very likely that your dog has been affected by sand fleas. Sand fleas manifest themselves on your dogs skin as tiny black dots. You may see bumps or small rashes on your dogs skin as you would if your dog were bitten by mosquitoes. Your dog will, of course, be scratching incessantly.
Djangos long and low-riding frame makes him very susceptible to picking up debris and insects when were out adventuring. After Django unfortunately picked up fleas after a family beach vacation to North Carolina last year, Mike and I (Steph) went into hardcore research mode. Can dogs get fleas from the beach? What are sand fleas, and where do they come from? In this article we take an in-depth look at sand fleas: what they are, where they thrive, and whether you and your dog need to be worried about sand flea bites during your next beach outing.
Mike and I are the proud parents of an 8 month old baby and a rambunctious 3.5 year old toddler. We are also madly in love with our long haired dachshund Django. Based on our own parenting experience, we have rounded up 21 puppy themed baby gifts that are sure to elicit oohs and aahs when unwrapped. We have included puppy themed baby clothes and accessories, puppy themed toys for babies and toddlers, and puppy themed home and nursery decor.
DJANGOs Adventure Dog Harnesses and Leashes are designed for rugged adventures and everyday use. The Adventure Dog Harness features a weather-resistant and padded neoprene exterior with reflective piping, breathable sport mesh lining, supple and colorfast webbing, and four points of adjustment for a custom fit. The Adventure Dog Leash features heavy-duty and colorfast webbing, an ultra-padded neoprene handle for max comfort, and a functional D-ring. Solid cast brass hardware adds additional strength, durability, and sophistication to the adventure-ready designs.
Our dachshund Django is obsessed with water and absolutely loves the beach. He literally screams like an old lady who just won the lottery whenever he sees the ocean (no exaggeration).
While sand fleas are very common in the West Indies and South and Central America, they can also be found in marches, along the coastal United States, and even thrive on the Mediterranean coast. Floridas eastern and Gulf coasts, North Carolinas banks, and even Southern California beaches are known to have sand flea colonies.
Can dogs get sand fleas?
Yes, it’s possible for your pupper to get sand fleas just like any other flea problem. Sand fleas are present in many parts of the US.
They’re especially apparent in native areas like beaches, swamps, marshes, any other humid areas with large bodies of water.
Sand fleas will easily infest your dog. They’re a burrowing flea, which means they burrow into your dog’s skin.
After that, they’ll feed on the dog’s blood. Note that sand fleas can also infect humans, so they’re not limited to just canines.
For people who walk their dogs on beaches, or live next to a beach, sand fleas can become a real pest.
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An itching, scratching dog conjures up nightmarish s of fleas hopping everywhere—especially onto our furniture, beds, and carpets. Fleas are prime suspects if your dog is scratching without any apparent reason, but before you can blame fleas for your dog’s discomfort you need to do a little more investigating.
The best way to find out if your dog has fleas is to look for symptoms of flea bites on dogs.
Fleas are tiny parasites that feed off of the blood of their hosts. There are over 2,200 species of fleas in the world, but the flea that most frequently infests dogs is not the dog flea, which is relatively rare, but the cat flea, scientifically known as Ctenocephalides felis.
While it might seem somewhat ironic that the fleas bothering your dog are “cat fleas,” this flea species is known to infest more than 50 different mammals and birds throughout the world. In the United States, they prefer dogs, cats, wolves, foxes, raccoons, opossums, ferrets, and domestic rabbits. The widespread palette of fleas gives your dog plenty of opportunities to pick them up as she goes about her day.
Flea removal is tricky, and you need to have a basic knowledge of the flea life cycle to choose the right products for your dog. As gross as it might be to think about, you need to know how fleas feed and reproduce.
Adult fleas lay their eggs in the hair of their host—your dog. A female flea can lay as many as 50 eggs a day and an average of 27 eggs a day for up to 100 days. As far as I am concerned, that’s 27 eggs a day too many. These eggs fall to the ground every time your dog shakes, scratches, or lies down, infesting your home and yard.
The eggs hatch 1-to-6 days later into larvae. Indoors, the larvae burrow deep into the fibers of your carpet or outside into grass, leaves, or soil, where they then spin themselves a cocoon after a week or two. The larva matures into an adult flea inside the cocoon and waits for a potential host to pass by. Pre-emerged adults can survive for weeks and even months under the right conditions, which is one of the reasons why it is so hard to remove fleas from the home.