Have you noticed a lot of tiny bites around your ankles or legs that itch? Most often if you can’t find the source and you haven’t been outside to get attacked by noseums you are being attacked by fleas. There are several methods for flea pest control and you should be aware of all of them before you begin treating your home for fleas.

Supervise Pets Outside

First to avoid a flea problem all together you should not allow your pet outside during the summer months or if you live in a hot climate at all unless you are there to supervise. Stay away from creeks, mud pits, other animals you are not familiar with, and tall grassy areas. Fleas like to ride around on live animals and they are most populated in forest or wetland areas that tend to be muggy.

Taking Care Of The Flea Problem

If you do have a flea problem or are worried about fleas, you can give your pet medication as a preventative flea pest control measure. This medication is usually a drop or two on the back of their necks every few months. Some pets may be allergic to this medication so make sure the area is not beginning to lose hair. Also try not to hit the same spot each time, though their necks may be small you can move around a little bit.

Giving your pet a bath periodically can help keep the fleas at bay. There are also flea pest control shampoos that will allow you to de-flea your pet. There are powders and sprays you can use in the yard to prevent fleas from getting near your pets. Keep in mind your pet will need to be kept from the area for a few days so the spray can wear off without causing problems with your pet.

You Home Needs Care

If you have a flea problem in your home, you will need to keep your pet locked out while you set off bug bombs for flea pest control to eliminate the fleas in your carpet, furniture, and bedding. If at all possible wash the pets bedding as well after you use a bug bomb to rid yourself of the fleas or buy new bedding.

Flea pest control is important if you want to get rid of the itchy ankles and legs. No one should have to put up with fleas and as long as you pay attention to your pet and make allowances for the flea season of summer you and your pet should be happy. Fleas are carriers of disease so you need to be extra careful if you even suspect you have fleas.

Even if you do not want to sign up for their service it is a good idea to understand the pests you have and make sure your home is safe so even a consultation is okay. After all, you do not have to sign up if you do not have the resources or you if you can handle the situation. If you do not want to be bothered with spraying around your home, these home pest control services do offer a twice a year service or year round service to help you keep those pests under control.

David Faulkner
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-improvement-articles/flea-pest-control-needs-effort-to-control-251923.html

A few nice Small Dog Carrier images I found:

Cat


Image by sylvia@intrigue
I was walking past the vacant lot down by the new school when I heard an odd sound. It was almost a braying noise – my first thought was donkey. I paused and looked around. There was a young cat coming towards the pavement. I stopped and watched him. We have a lot of feral cats, fed by tourists and left to breed more, so there’s a real cat population problem. They become used to having food put out for them so although they won’t go near people, they do know people provide food. It’s not uncommon for a cat to cry at me and then hide in the bushes if I step towards it.

So I stepped towards it.

He ran straight to me and wound his way around my ankles.

OK, maybe not a feral cat?

I stroked him a few times and then started to go on my way. He trotted beside me like a dog.

He looks about 6 months old with tabby markings and a siamese look to his body and incredibly bright blue eyes. His body is streaky cream coloured. He’s not been spayed and he’s not been out on the street very long. His fur is somewhat matted but no fleas (yay!). He doesn’t have a collar.

He is terribly attention-starved. He ignored the chicken I unpacked in the kitchen but went crazy when he saw a tin can. I fed him a small amount and then waited half an hour and fed him a bit more. He drank a lot of water and then went to the sofa and slept for a few hours.

Now he’s awake again and exploring in between cuddles.

I still have a bed, cat carrier and kitty litter box & grit from my previous cat. I’ve set him up an area downstairs. If he’s still around tomorrow, we’ll go to the vet and see if he’s chipped.

Roscoe 065


Image by Purrs & Paws of A.R.A.S.
Roscoe has been at the shelter since 2/28/09. He is very friendly and talkitive, good with small children and doesn’t jump up on tables. He was raised with other cats and dogs and does well with them. He doesn’t beg to go outside, but does like to go outside, although he doesn’t roam. He uses his litter pan perfectly and rides quietly in the car and carrier. He was found as a leave-behind pet around 44th and Wadsworth.

ok so I gave my friends puppy a bath with dishwasing liquid like a couple of people suggested.(im puppysitting for her and the puppy hd fleas all over even after I asked her if the dog had fleas and she told me no)My maltese/yorkie has never had fleas and thats how I would like to keep her.Whta should I do with the puppy now.She is in the pet carrier and she keeps crying and whining.She doesnt want to walk around though she wants to come up on the bed and sleep with my puppy and im sorry but i am not having that.I take my puppy to the groomers all the time and they always tell me how well kept she is.I dont want to bring her back with fleas all over her.Please what should i do.She is crying and wont stop but i dont want to take her out and then have fleas evrywhere.Ive been keeping my puppy from her.(and she also seems quite vicious.We went to pet her and she snapped at us.This was before we put her in the pet carrier)UGHHHH….FRUSTRATED
I def understand Anxiously Awaiting but she should have never given me her flea infested pup.The crate is huge and was meant for my aunts rotti when she came to visit and needed a crate for him so its huge.Shes running around in it and is playing.As for reimbursement my friend is out of town on a job interview so getting money back probably wont happen.

In the medical field, mosquitoes are perhaps the greatest scourge of any insect pest. In much of the world, mosquitoes are the number-one public health menace, it being estimated that they transmit disease to more than 69 million people every year. They are a common pest in virtually every corner of the world, since they have evolved to adapt to virtually any climate and condition.

But there’s one piece of good news: AIDS is among the diseases they do not transmit. HIV virus is specific to human bodily fluids; it requires blood, sexual fluids, or breast milk to live. That’s one disease off the list, but a small comfort when the mosquito is able to give you an astounding array of other diseases, infections, and parasites.

The mosquito-borne diseases are mostly of the zoonotic variety. “Zoonotic” means a disease can be transmitted across multiple species, as opposed to being restricted to one species. Mosquitoes stand alongside fleas, ticks, lice, and other blood-sucking parasites as nature’s handiest methods of porting diseases from one creature to the next. It could even be argued that if there were no blood-sucking vermin, there would be no such thing as a zooanotic disease!

The one getting the most attention currently in the United States is the West Nile virus. Almost anything with warm blood seems to be able to play host to a West Nile virus. It’s preferred hosts are birds, but it is transmittable to humans, horses, dogs, cats, bats, chipmunks, skunks, squirrels, and rabbits, and we’re probably going to discover more before the story’s over. And of course, the main carriers of West Nile are mosquitoes. West Nile Virus, like HIV, has no known human vaccine at this time. It was first discovered in Uganda in 1937, and first appeared in North America in the year 1999. An interesting fact is that crows are particularly susceptible to it, and so the sudden deaths of many crows in an area is a sign that there could be a local West Nile outbreak. Thus, crows serve as a kind of “canary in a coal mine” warning of a West Nile outbreak.

The list of other diseases that you can catch from a mosquito bite seems to go on forever. Take a deep breath and get ready to say: yellow fever, dengue fever, epidemic polyarthritis, Rift Valley fever, Ross River Fever, and don’t forget to mention malaria. Malaria, a historically dangerous menace to the human population, has always been linked to mosquitoes. One historic epidemic in particular was the Panama Canal project, which had trouble with a malaria outbreak. This incident alone contributed to the 27,000 deaths associated with that project.

Now here’s one fact that should be on the final exam: What is the link between mosquitoes and elephantiasis? Lymphatic Filariasis, the parasite, is transmitted by mosquito bite as well. This particular infection is limited to tropical regions, and causes symptoms reminiscent of the famous “Elephant Man”, although the disease actually affecting the Elephant Man was something different.

The dramatic threat posed by mosquitoes to humans has led to all varieties of drastic measures to ward them off. The things that work are mosquito netting, repellents containing the chemical DEET (N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide), clothing treated with Permethrin repellents, and citronella candles and torches. Now that we’ve taken care of what works, the following is a list of urban legends for repelling mosquitoes which most definitely do not work. If you catch a patient relying on one of these methods, inform them that it’s been de-bunked.

ULTRASONIC DEVICES: They do not work, not only for mosquitoes, but for repelling anything at all. There is not a single shred of scientific evidence anywhere to show that any living creature on Earth consistently avoids the source of an ultrasonic noise. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently conducted a series of tests spanning two years trying many types of ultrasound devices which are purported to repel mosquitoes. Their testing grounds were the mosquito-ridden area around Chesapeake Bay. Their findings were that not one of the devices had any effect on mosquitoes at all. Various studies have been done in universities which produced the same results. Both the EPA and the U.S. Postal Service have begun prosecuting manufacturers of ultrasonic repelling devices because they are making unsupported claims for their products.

VITAMIN B: Even though vitamin B, particularly B6, has been shown to be effective against other kinds of blood-sucking vermin like fleas, it doesn’t work against mosquitoes. Vitamin B works to protect your pet against fleas because it makes the dog’s blood and skin taste bad to the fleas. Mosquitoes aren’t fazed in the least, even if you douse yourself in a barrel of brewer’s yeast.

GARLIC: Why is it that every time you go to look up ways to repel something, garlic always pops up? Why did it have to be the garlic clove at the center of so many legends? Why not celery or oranges or corn syrup? But anyway, garlic doesn’t repel mosquitoes either. It is a tasty seasoning, however.

BATS: While bats are marvelous, misunderstood, and endangered species and building a bat house is something you shouldn’t discourage, bats, sadly, do not make an effective mosquito-killer. Bats do help farmers by gobbling up a wide range of other destructive insect pests, but mosquitoes constitute less than one percent of a bat’s diet. This is because a mosquito simply isn’t big enough to satisfy a bat-sized appetite.

INCENSE: Now this is just plain silly. Incense, at least the stick kind which you can buy at the store, attracts mosquitoes rather than repels them. This myth arises from the confusion with citronella candles and torches, which do repel mosquitoes.

BUG ZAPPERS: Oh, no, I hear you cry, those electric purple bug zappers really do kill mosquitoes, I’ve seen them! Yes, along with completely innocent and even beneficial species such as moths, bees, ladybugs, and dragonflies, and it’s the dragonflies which, by the way, really are the greatest natural predators of mosquitoes! If a bug zapper gets a mosquito, it was pure luck that the mosquito just happened to blunder into it. You would need about a hundred of them around you to keep from being bitten.

Good luck in fighting them. Remember that eradicating the mosquito menace is difficult because they were here at least 165 millions years before we were!

Josh Stone
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/the-impact-of-mosquitoes-on-world-health-136895.html