That's a great question. Knowing the flea life cycle is essential because the fleas you and I see are only one to five percent of the whole flea community’s population. 95% are immature fleas that reside in your house, in areas like the carpet, bedding, things like that. So it's important to know that because not only do we need to treat the animal for at least three months while the immature population matures, but we also need to do a thorough cleaning of your house to get rid of that 95% of the community.

We have great oral medications that we recommend. One of them that I like the best would be Simparica or Simparica Trio, which is incredibly helpful if you want to incorporate heartworm medication. And those usually do a very effective job of getting rid of fleas and ticks.

Treats are a little bit different. If your dog has some food allergies, the treats would matter. Sometimes dogs can have food allergies to common proteins such as chicken. So sometimes the treats can matter if that's the case. In general, though, I would recommend that we try to keep the caloric intake with treats down. Try to feed them only 10% of treats of their caloric intake per day to try to keep them at a healthy weight.

I would say the most important thing would be that they have grain in them. I know that this can be a shocker to many people, but studies lately suggested that grain-free diets can lead to heart disease. And I've seen two or three clinical cases myself where the owner is just feeding them a grain-free diet thinking it's the best thing for their beloved animal. Then we, unfortunately, have to treat the dog for congestive heart failure. So I think it's essential to make sure that their dog food has grain in it. Also, make sure that the food is meant for day in and day out feeding.