How To Combat Fleas And Ticks Without Putting Your Dog At Risk: 9 Effective Home Remedies
Yuk! There are so many wonderful things about the summer, but the bugs aren’t one of them. What can we do for our dogs to help protect them from warm weather creepy-crawlies? There are of course lots of chemical options, but more and more studies show that these can have a harmful effect on our fur-babies. So, here are some natural bug sprays and insect repellents for dogs.
How To Get Rid Of Fleas Naturally
Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV)
A topical spray
Fleas don’t like the smell of ACV. You could make a topical spray for your pooch with 1 part ACV, 1 part water. Mix it up in a spritz bottle and spray away! Be careful not to spray near your dog’s eyes.
In food
You can add ACV directly to your dog’s food or water – the dose is 1/2 tsp per 25 lbs of body weight. My dogs refuse to drink their water with ACV in it though, so I add it to their food. It will help make your dog’s blood less appealing to ticks and fleas.
Garlic
Another dietary option to help repel ticks and fleas is garlic. Many people mistakenly believe that garlic is bad for dogs, but in fact at the right dose it’s an excellent addition to his diet. You would have to feed your dog an awful lot of garlic for it to present any health risk.
Lemon Juice
But what if you REALLY don’t like the smell of ACV? Try lemon juice instead, or any other citrus fruit juice. It’s the citrus element that the fleas dislike. Use it in the same way you would the ACV spritz bottle – just be aware that lemon juice can lighten dark dog fur.
How To Get Rid Of Fleas Using DE
I love DE (diatomaceous earth). For years I, like so many others, used to use it as part of a natural deworming program for my dogs and goats. Sadly however, there isn’t one clinical study that shows efficacy for its use as an internal dewormer. Thankfully though, its use externally is excellent.
DE (diatomaceous earth) works as a bug killer by drying insects out. They don’t die immediately, but as soon as the DE comes into contact with an insect’s body, it begins to absorb the liquid from inside the insect. It isn’t poisonous to mammals, though you should try to avoid breathing in DE dust.
I fill a flour shaker with DE and sprinkle it in the dog bed areas, the floors and the dogs themselves. I leave it like that for a day even though it’s a little unsightly having white powder all over the house – just don’t do it the day your in-laws are due to come and visit! Then I vacuum and it disappears.
If you don’t have a flour shaker, you can easily make up a shaker from a small plastic container with tiny holes drilled into the lid. Alternatively, you can buy DE in a shaker or with a puffing spout, like this:
Make sure that you and your pooch aren’t breathing in DE when you apply it and don’t get it in your dog’s eyes. I sprinkle it over my dogs’ backs and then gently brush it through. It does temporarily dull that lovely sheen on their coat for a while. It also dries your hands, so either use gloves or grab that pot of hand-cream for yourself afterwards.
Read more about getting rid of fleas naturally, without harsh chemicals, in this article.
Ticks
When we lived in Argentina, ticks were a real problem. We moved back to the UK just over a year ago and the dogs haven’t had a single tick since. It’s not because there aren’t any though. My neighbour here has a border collie and her dog regularly gets ticks in the summer.
Thankfully, DE (diatomaceous earth) is great for killing off the ticks too. If you have outside space – a garden or yard, you can dust around the edge of the house with DE Any areas of long grass could be dusted too as ticks tend to latch on to dogs as they move through the long grass.
A word of warning though – please don’t dust DE around flowers or near sources of water that beneficial insects visit. As well as killing the unwelcome creepy crawlies, DE will kill ladybirds and bees too.
If you like the idea of using a natural, rather than chemical, solution to ticks, but you don’t have the time to make one up, Dr Dobias’ Tickhex is a great commercial option.
How To Remove A Tick Safely From Your Dog
So what do you do if your dog has a tick? Regular brushing and petting will soon alert you to the presence of these unwanted little parasites, but don’t just rush in and pull it out with your fingers. That often results in squishing the tick to death, which might cause the tick’s body fluids to be injected into your dog. In some cases this can result in an infection.
If you often have to remove ticks from your pup, it’s probably worth buying yourself a tick key / remover. These are very cheap and are available online.
If you don’t have one, here is how you can safely remove a tick from your dog:
- Get some tweezers.
- Part your dog’s fur from around the tick so you can see it clearly.
- Use the tweezers and place them over the tick, as close as you can to your dog’s skin, making sure you’re not grabbing his skin too.
- Begin to squeeze the tick with the tweezers, pulling slowly upwards at the same time.
- The tick should release its grip on your dog as you add more pressure, then you can pull it out completely.
- Flush it down the loo.
- Clean your hands and the bite area with soap and water, hand disinfectant gel or rubbing alcohol. If you have some, you could dab a spot of thyme essential oil (thyme thujanol) to the area too. As well as being anti-bacterial, it’s understood that it can help prevent Lyme disease.
Insect Repelling Essential Oils For Dogs
There are many essential oils that are not dog-safe (pennyroyal, wintergreen and clove to name just a few). There are also essential oils that are toxic to our dogs when we use them in an oil burner or diffuser (see a list here)
However, here are some essentials oils you can use on their skin, that also have the added benefit of repelling insects:
Eucalyptus radiata. Benefits: Anti-inflammatory, flea-repellent and it smells good.
Cedarwood, Atlas (Cedrus atlantica) Flea-repellent, good for the skin. Oh, and it also smells good.
Geranium (Pelargonium graveolens) Ant-fungal, good for the skin, tick repellent. Ticks don’t like the smell of this one, which is fabulous because I LOVE it. Geranium is one of my favourites for the oil burner too.
Marjoram, Sweet (Origanum marjorana) Antibacterial, insect repellent
Myrrh (Commiphora myrrha) Anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, tick repellent
Peppermint (Mentha piperita) Insect repellent
Homemade DIY Bug Sprays For Your Dog
Kristen Leigh Bell wrote a fabulous book – Holistic Aromatherapy for Animals: A Comprehensive Guide to the Use of Essential Oils Hydrosols with Animals.
I really recommend this book on using essential oils. I’ve made several formulas from it for my dogs, including shampoo, and the flea and tick formulas are fabulous. It’s clearly written and very thorough.
Other oils that ramp up the efficacy of the DIY sprays are cinnamon oil and cedar oil. Both have been shown to kill mosquito larvae. Cedar oil also helps to repel fleas and ticks.
Carrier Oils
Bell suggests using castor oil. I also use neem and coconut oil. Neem does have a strong smell, but it also repels insects. Both are only liquid when warm, so only work in a spritz in the heat of summer. You could use a combination of carrier oils.
Neem oil can also be added to any dog shampoo to make it into a flea and tick control shampoo – add approx 1 part Neem oil to 20 parts shampoo.
DIY Flea-free Solution for Dog Collar / Bandana
Topically applied anti-flea formulas
For fleas, I make up a solution of a blend of carrier oils and essential oils. I dab it on my dogs, on the back of their necks, mid-spine, the tail base and on their chests, roughly on a weekly basis. This is the solution:
15ml carrier oil (I use a mix of coconut oil, castor oil and neem)
7 drops Peppermint essential oil
4 drops Clary Sage essential oil
3 drops Lemon essential oil
1 drop Citronella essential oil
I also put a couple of drops on their bandanas. You can easily turn your dog’s collar or bandana into a flea collar / bandana by dabbing of few drops of this mixture onto your dog’s collar or a bandana. Refresh every couple of days.
Get the easy to make, double-sided dog bandana pattern shown in the picture above.
A note on collars: I always remove my dogs’ collars and bandanas when we return from a walk. I once had a horrifying situation where one of them got their collar stuck on something at home and so now I never take the risk of leaving them on. Plus, I think they appreciate not having something around their necks all the time. Once I began to remove their collars, I noticed that the discolouration on their necks also disappeared.
Related articles
Read more about getting rid of fleas naturally, without harsh chemicals, in this article.
See this DNM article for a review of commercial mosquito repellents that can be used on dogs.
More about the harmful effect of flea and tick treatments on dogs.