Lucy Jerram

Hi, David.

It is a real thing.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I guess it maybe doesn't look like our skincare routine might, but it's not that far from it either.

So we start with worrying about parasites, so fleas and ticks.

And that's the bit that looks less like our skincare routine.

But if we end up with... Speak for yourself.

Well...

But if we end up with a dog or any kind of pet that we know has issues, then we look at things like omega-3 oil supplementation, zinc supplementation, good washing techniques.

It varies very much on the dog.

For dogs that love going in the river or the sea or wherever, we would be saying realistically they need a wash every time they get out, particularly of rivers and less flowing water, so lakes and that kind of thing.

If you are having to wash that regularly, then we'd look at products that are a bit less...

harsh on the skin so kind of a milder shampoo a more sensitive shampoo again this potentially sounds a bit like thinking about your own skin care if you know you have sensitive skin you might might think about it accordingly so yeah okay so to control the fleas and the ticks there are options out there

Yeah, absolutely.

So this is probably, I would say, probably 90% of our consults in a day, we will discuss parasite control, even if it's not the reason that the dog is in the room.

It's really important, particularly dogs that live with cats, they are really prone to fleas.

only about 5% to 10% of fleas actually live on the dog.

So the rest will live in the environment.

And the environment for that pet is generally nowadays our house.

And there was even a study of pet owners last year that they found that 30% of pet owners, their dogs sleep on their beds.