How Do You Get Rid of Dog Mites in Your Home?

How Do You Get Rid of Dog Mites in Your Home?- Mites are tiny creatures present on your canine friend’s skin, which cause severe infection and irritation in your dog’s skin.

Here’s a detailed description of how to get rid of dog mites along with key takeaways:

What are Dog Mites?

  • Mites are microscopic creatures that live on your dog’s skin.
  • While some mites are harmless, others cause severe skin irritation, infections, and a condition called mange.

Signs Your Dog Has Mites

  • Intense itching and scratching
  • Hair loss
  • Dry, inflamed skin
  • Foul odor
  • In severe cases, decreased appetite

Why You Should Get Rid of Mites in Your Home

  • Mites can spread a contagious skin disease called sarcoptic mange (canine scabies) to other animals and sometimes to humans.
  • Even if not contagious, dog mites cause severe discomfort for your pet and can lead to further skin problems.

How to Eliminate Dog Mites in Your Home

  1. Treat Your Dog:

    • A veterinarian will diagnose the specific mite and prescribe appropriate medication (oral, topical, or dip).
  2. Clean Dog Bedding Thoroughly:

    • Wash all bedding, blankets, and toys with hot water and detergent. Dry on high heat.
  3. Disinfect Furniture and Surfaces:

    • Use a disinfectant spray on areas your dog frequents. Vinegar, water, and essential oils make a safe, homemade option.
  4. Declutter:

    • Minimize dusty areas, piles of clothes, and general clutter where mites can thrive.
  5. Cover Mattresses and Pillows:

    • Protect yourself while helping prevent the accumulation of dust mites.

Key Takeaways

  • Treating your dog for mites is the first and most important step in getting rid of them in your home.
  • Thorough cleaning and disinfecting of all areas your dog frequents is crucial.
  • Decluttering helps reduce mite-friendly environments.
  • Taking these steps protects your dog and your family from these unwanted pests.

Important Note: Always consult your veterinarian for the best diagnosis and treatment options for your dog’s specific mite infestation.

What are Mites?

You might often notice your dog scratching his head, lower portion of its ears, and body and wonder what the problem with your canine friend is?

Your dog’s scratching in different parts of its body is due to mites. It is a type of microscopic organism in your dog’s skin that causes severe skin infection and irritation to your dog.

This microscopic organism named mites can sometimes be beneficial for the environment. This can break down organic matter by allowing the nutrients to get used by the plants again.

What are the Skin Issues Caused by Dogs Mite?

Your dog can get severe skin issues if it gets affected by a mite. When this microscopic organism feasts on your canine friend’s skin, it causes a glut of problems that can be very uncomfortable for your pet.

Mites are majorly responsible for the most vital skin disease of dogs named mange; along with this essential skin disease, mites cause many other severe issues like dry skin, hair loss, itchiness, and inflammation.

How Do Dogs Get Mites?

Mites are tiny structures that are found in the stored green hay, trees, and plants. If your dog is an indoor one, then you might have thought, where do these mites come in your dogs?

These microscopic structures can rapidly transmit from one host organism to another. If you take your dog for evening and morning walk sessions, then the probability of your dog getting affected by this microscopic organism increases.

 As when the dogs go for an outing, they often come in contact with the street dogs, which are already affected by this mite as they always remain in close contact with the plants, trees, and grasses responsible for causing mites in their bodies.

Why Do Mites in Your Home Need to Get Removed?

If your dog has spread mites in your room, it needs to be removed because sometimes these mites can cause the most vital type of skin infection named sarcoptic mange, which is also referred to as canine scabies.

As per research on canine scabies, dog mites diseases can also get transmitted to the dog’s owner, but the effect doesn’t remain harsh as in dogs.

Canine scabies caused by dogs causes severe itchiness in humans. But still, it is suggested to most dog owners that they should remove the mites in their homes to avoid further skin complications.

What Signs Can You Notice in Your Dog’s Body for Mites?

When your canine friend gets affected by this microscopic organism, the dog’s body shows various responses against that microscopic organism which the dog owner can notice to treat the dog for mites. The signs that the body of your canine friend gives against mites are discussed below.

Loss of Hair

Mites usually get attached to the roots of the hair on the dog’s coat, and the toxic substances released by that microscopic organism in the roots of the hair weaken the hair roots, which causes loss of hair in that organism.

Dry Skin and Inflammation

When the mites release digestive enzymes after digesting their meals, it damages the few skin cells present on the skin, which leads to dryness and inflammation of the skin.

Foul Odor from the Dog

A dog’s unpleasant odor is mainly because of the mites present in its ears named Demodex and Sarcoptes. It usually gets built up in the ears by developing a foul smell that causes an unpleasant odor from the body.

Extreme Scratching

Mites get attached to the skin and invade the skin of healthy animals by releasing toxic substances in the coat like hydrogen cyanide to fight the predators, which cause extreme itching in dogs.

Decreased Appetite

Mites are usually known to affect the dogs’ skin, but in severe cases, when it invades the lymph nodes, they can also cause loss of appetite in dogs.

All the above-discussed mites disease symptoms are based on research on mites-affected dogs. So a dog owner can entirely rely upon these symptoms mentioned above to check if their dog is suffering from mites or not.

How Do You Get Rid of Dog Mites in Your Home?

As we have discussed above, the dog’s mites should be removed from your house as they can also affect the dog’s owner.

The effect of mites in humans is quite normal, but it was better to make the home mites free to avoid further skin complications.

A dog owner has to follow some steps properly to make their home mites free, which are discussed below.

Get Your Dog Treated for Mites

As we all know, to remove an infectious thing, first we need to destroy the root of that infection-causing organism to avoid any further chances of regeneration of that infectious-causing organism in the future. So the first step that all dog owners can take is to treat their dog for mites.

For this, all the owner has to do is take the dog to a veterinarian, as the veterinarian will do a microscopic test of your dog’s skin coat. This skin test will detect what nutritious substance is precisely causing the mites to extend.

After the skin test, the veterinarian will provide the medicines as per the toxicity of the skin to treat the mites, which can be very helpful in making your dog mites resistant.

Proper Cleaning of the Dog’s Bedding

Proper cleaning of the dog’s cushions and bedding is the most effective option a dog owner can go with for making the house mites resistant.

This is because mites often get attached to the beddings of your dog where it sleeps and to all the other things where your dog spends time mostly.

The mites in these households often get ignored due to their microscopic size, which needs to be cleaned to prevent your treated dog gets affected by this microscopic organism again.

For this, all the owner has to do is take a handful of soap and the required amount of water in the washing machine and then drop all the dog’s bedding in it to get it cleaned properly.

Use the Disinfectant Spray on the Furniture

Mites often get attached to the furniture and other household materials, which are almost impossible to wash.

The use of a disinfectant spray is more suggested when it comes to cleaning the furniture to kill the mites from it. A dog owner can also make effective disinfectant spray on their own.

For this, all the owner has to do is add one cup of vinegar and ten drops of essential oil along with three cups of water in a bowl and stir gently, then add it to a spray bottle with the help of the funnel. The homemade disinfectant spray is ready to kill the mites attached to the households.

Declutter the House

The microscopic organism named mites finds the dusty areas, dirty laundry, and piles of clothing in your house the most comfortable place to live and regenerate.

So decluttering the house is the most crucial step a dog owner can follow.

For the decluttering of the house, all you can do is properly clean all the dirty places of your home.

Remove the dozens of old newspapers and clean the tables with a lot of trinkets to destroy all the polluted areas of your home where the mites can hide.

Cover the Pillows and Mattress

After following all the above steps, a final step you can follow for making the home mite resistant is covering the pillows and mattresses of your home.

This will help the owner to protect themselves against mites, and the build-up of dust mites will also get interrupted due to the covers. So it’s really an excellent choice to go with.

Most dog owners test all the above steps, and a person can entirely rely upon these steps to make their home disinfected from mites.

So here we are, done with all the information regarding how to get rid of dog mites in your home. We hope you have gone through the entire article, and all the information discussed in the article has put your search to an end and has cleared all your doubts.

Aapt Dubey
Aapt Dubey

Aapt Dubey, a devoted canine enthusiast and experienced dog Owner, brings boundless passion to our team. With a heart full of love for our four-legged friends, Aapt is dedicated to sharing insights on dog care, behavior, and training to make every pup's life happier and healthier at ItsAboutDog.com.

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