Natural Health for Dogs & Cats

If your pet goes outdoors, follow these steps as well.

Mow and water your lawn regularly. Short grass allows sunlight to penetrate and warm the soil, which kills larvae. Watering drowns the developing fleas.

Encourage ants. Perhaps I should say "do not discourage ants." They love to eat flea eggs and larvae. This is another reason not to use pesticides that kill all the insects in your yard.

"Sterilize" bare-earth sleeping spots. If your pet likes to sleep or hang out in a certain bare or sandy area, occasionally cover the spot with a heavy black plastic sheet on a hot, sunny day. Rake up any dead leaves and other debris first. The heat that builds up under the plastic does an excellent job of killing fleas and larvae. Of course, this is not appropriate to use where you want to preserve live grass or plants.

Apply agricultural lime on grassy or moist areas. This helps to dry out the fleas. Rake up any dead leaves and grassy debris first.

Along with the above steps, you might try these methods to repel fleas that may try to jump back on your pet, especially those harder-to-kill ones hanging out in the backyard.

Use an herbal flea powder. You'll find them in pet stores and natural food stores, or you can make your own. Combine one part each of as many of these powdered herbs as you can find: eucalyptus, rosemary, fennel, yellow dock, wormwood, and rue. Put this mixture in a shaker-top jar, such as a jar for parsley flakes.

Apply the flea powder sparingly to your pet's coat by brushing backward with your hand or the comb and sprinkling it into the base of the hairs, especially on the neck, back, and belly. To combat severe infestations, use several times a week. Afterward, put your animal friend outside for awhile so the disgruntled tenants vacate in the yard and not in your house. Some herbal flea powders also contain natural pyrethrins, which are not strong flea-killers but do seem to greatly discourage them.

Use an herbal flea collar. These are impregnated with insect-repellent herbal oils. Some are made to be "recharged" with the oils and used again. Buy them at natural food stores.

Try a natural skin tonic. The animal herbalist Juliette de Bairacli-Levy recommends this lemon skin tonic, which many of my clients successfully use on their pets for a general skin toner, parasite repellent, and treatment for mange.

Thinly slice a whole lemon, including the peel. Add it to 1 pint of near-boiling water and let it steep overnight. The next day, sponge the solution onto the animal's skin and let it dry. You can use this daily for severe skin problems involving fleas. It is a source of natural flea-killing substances such as d-limonene and other healing ingredients found in the whole lemon.

Add ample nutritional or brewer's yeast and garlic to the diet. Some studies show yeast supplementation significantly reduces flea numbers, though others indicate no effect. My experience with using yeast is that it has some favorable effect, particularly if the animal's health is good. You can also rub it directly into the animal's hair. Many people also praise the value of garlic as a flea repellent, though so far studies do not support this.