Pet owners don’t have the luxury of disregarding fleas if their dog has them. Fleas are going to be a source of great torment for the animal and may also lead them to get dermatitis if they are left to do as they please. So there becomes a real need to get rid of fleas fast, and many dog owners will have seen flea and tick shampoos on the shelf at their local pet store or from an online pet pharmacy. A quick fix will always be preferable if it’s a legit option, so this has some asking does flea and tick shampoo work? 

The answer is that yes it does, but it’s not going to eliminate fleas entirely unless there’s very few of them on the animal to begin with. A flea and tick shampoo will kill fleas and ticks provided they come into contact with the parasiticide in the shampoo, but it’s entirely possible they avoid it and if they do its business as usual with all the biting and making your dog suffer. A flea collar is only somewhat effective in the same way, and you shouldn’t expect to see your dog be entirely flea-free if you use either of these approaches.  

The reason a flea and tick prevention medication like K9 Advantix is so much more effective for killing fleas and ticks has to do with biting and ingestion. Fleas and ticks are going to bite your dog, it’s what they are biologically hardwired to do. That compulsion spells their doom, because when your dog takes an oral flea tablet the parasiticide is in their blood and the fleas and ticks will ingest it with their next bite. That’s not going to happen in the other instance and explains what you need to know if does flea and tick shampoo work.  

Dose & Wash 

What you can consider if your dog has a bad case of fleas is to use flea and tick shampoo as a supplemental approach to get the fleas that aren’t killed by the excitotoxin in the medication. Again, all of them will be biting incessantly so that’s probably not going to be many of them but if you are determined to use shampoo for fleas this is an option. Using it on its own to prevent fleas and ticks isn’t advisable though. That’s the reality for does flea and tick shampoo work, simply because they will only kill some of the fleas on your dog.  

Flea and tick preventatives will also qualify as the safest flea and tick treatment too, at least as far as effective ones are concerned. The active ingredients in oral flea and tick meds are only a risk to the parasites, and for topical ones the reason the solution is applied to the base of the necks is because it is the only region of their body that a dog isn’t able to lick. The long and short of does flea and tick shampoo work is that it doesn’t work especially well, but a topical or oral flea and tick medication is going to be a much more thorough fix for the problem.