
07/21/2025
This is the time of year that we start seeing flea anemia in cats and kittens. Fleas can literally drain a kitten of blood in a day. Adult cats can have life threatening blood loss within a couple days with a high flea burden. Fleas reproduce at a horrifically fast pace and within a few days, they can have hundreds of offspring ( yes, hundreds) hatching. Although they prefer cats and dogs, they will also bite you as well. ( It's how the plague was spread, yes like the Black Plague in history)
Once your home is contaminated with fleas, it will take 3 months of diligent care to eradicate them. Environmental decontamination with washing of all cloth surfaces, sometimes fumigation of the home, and 3 months of oral or topical flea medications for ALL pets in the home is needed to get fleas under control. It is often less expensive to do MONTHLY proactive prevention.
If you live in shared housing ie apartments or a home that is multiple units, we have seen incidences of fleas crossing boundaries to infect indoor only cats in separate apartments.
If your pet has something that looks like dried rice around this a**s, this is likely tapeworm segments. Dogs and cats are infected with tapeworms from flea INGESTION. This means they need to be dewormed for intestinal parasites and you need to pick up flea prevention as well.
With cats, you may NEVER even SEE the fleas. Cats are great at grooming and removing the fleas before you can see them. If you are concerned, try brushing your pet and placing the fur you collect on a damp paper towel. If the paper towel has bloody droplets, your pet has fleas. ( it's the flea p**p making the red marks!)
Please make sure to use CAT specific medications for cats as dog formulas can be toxic.
In small kittens, they may need to be bathed daily since they may not be large enough to safely take prescription flea medications.
If you have any concerns, please contact your regular vet and if you don't have one, please set up a new patient appointment since our clinics cannot replace routine care.