Fly bites can irritate your dog’s skin, cause anemia and spread infections. Equally, when grooming your dog, if you notice wounds or unusual lumps, these should always be checked out by your veterinarian, as sometimes maggots and grubs may be present from a fly infestation if they have laid their eggs in your dog’s skin.

Treating Fly Bites

If you are aware your dog has been bitten by a fly, usually noted from a painful bump that may bleed and scab over, wash the area with warm water and an antiseptic soap, before applying antibiotic ointment to control any possible infection.

Preventing Flies

If your dog seems to suffer regularly from fly bites, it is possible to control flies by:

• Keeping your dog’s home environment clean
• Making sure that garbage containers in your yard are covered
• Using fly traps around your home
• Speaking to your vet about preventive treatments to control flies
• Keeping the living areas of other animals you may have, whether rabbits, chickens or livestock, clean too

Regularly bathing your dog and attending to wounds will also make them less susceptible to complications should a fly bite, but you can use a topical insecticide, such as a pyrethrin spray, to deter flies from your dog.

“Acanthonevroides jarvisi (5400170371)” by Donald Hobern from Copenhagen, Denmark – Acanthonevroides jarvisi. Licenced under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Diptera?uselang=en-gb

By Donald Hobern from Copenhagen, Denmark (Tachinidae sp.) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons