The top names in pet flea control are Frontline, Advantage, Revolution and Bio-Spot.

These well-known dog and cat flea treatments provide one month of solid protection.

Bad news to the flea, Advantage flea works due its active ingredient imidacloprid, which works on the nervous system of the flea causing paralysis and subsequent death.

Within 12 hours of application, 98-100 percent of fleas are dead.

Frontline and Advantage brand flea killers work nearly instantaneously and keep working for a long time.

If you have this treatment available, your animal shouldn’t suffer from flea discomfort.

The best solution is to pick a good flea medication for your dog.

Ticks, also known as mites, are external parasites that feast on the blood of birds and mammals, and reptiles.

The American dog tick is arguably the best known of the five in North America.

The scary part is that ticks are only one step behind mosquitoes in transmitting diseases to people.

Ticks can spread diseases like Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, equine encephalitis, and ehrlichiosis to humans.

Additionally, they are responsible for transmitting livestock and pet diseases.

Wood ticks are another kind of mite, living in the Rocky Mountains.

Tick treatments for dogs include tick collars and flea & tick shampoos.

Warm weather means an increase in the tick population and the need to monitor your dog for these parasites. When a tick is found it should be completely removed.

Part of the tick may be left in the wound, if you are not careful, thus increasing the likelihood of infection.

Unlike diseases passed by ticks, heartworm is transmitted by mosquitoes, and the larva then live in the bloodstream of the animal bitten by the mosquito.

Before becoming adults, the parasites must go through several stages. They enter the blood stream as larvae.

Once mature, the heartworms move to the heart to survive off of the blood supply.

Symptoms such as coughing and difficulty breathing may ensure, and the end result is heart failure.

Effective disease treatments are available for your pet, but only if it is caught early enough.

Interceptor for dogs is one such treatment, which also tackles hookworms and ascarid infections in one fell swoop.

Another common infection is kennel cough.

This is a very contagious strain of bronchitis that often spreads in places like kennels, where dogs are near many other dogs.

However, the infection can be treated with proper use of antibiotics, and it can even be prevented with vaccinating for canine adenovirus, distemper, parainfluenza, and bordetella.