Can Dawn Help With Fleas?
WouterIf you think your pet has fleas, you can use Dawn dish soap to get rid of fleas. Simply apply it to your pet’s fur and leave it there for a few minutes. While the dish soap is drying, use a flea comb to remove fleas from your pet’s fur. This method can be repeated if necessary, depending on how many fleas your pet has.
Using Dawn dish soap can help kill fleas and eggs. The emulsifiers in the dish soap break down the waxy cuticle of the flea, which allows the water to enter its circulatory system and kill it. The result is that the flea is essentially drowned.
While Dawn can kill fleas, it will not prevent future infestations. It is more of a temporary solution. Once the fleas have left your pet, they can jump on another animal in the area and start the cycle all over again. This is a dangerous situation, as flea populations can grow out of control fast. It takes just one day for an adult flea to lay as many as 50 eggs. And of those, about 10% will hatch into five new fleas. Most of these will be females.
Dawn can help kill flea eggs by preventing the flea from hatching. This is because it contains surfactants that reduce the surface tension of water. This helps to make water less attractive to fleas, causing them to die from drowning. The suds of Dawn also hinder the flea’s ability to breathe, causing them to die.
