I have often wondered why breeders have not featured flea resistant dogs. We see dogs certified as multiple generations of being free from hip dysplasia. I know for a fact that many dogs across many breeds I am familiar with are flea resistant. It seems this would be an attractive feature attached to a pedigree.
Let’s throw in tick resistant too!
Death resistant would be great too.
I don’t think making a tick or flea resistant dog would be a breeder problem. All dogs, even hairless dogs, are susceptible to fleas and ticks. It would be a genetic engineering problem, and probably a very expensive and difficult one. And effective flea and tick medications already exist, so why bother?
That’s just the thing, from my limited experience with a limited number of breeds I have found flea resistant dogs in all but the hounds and I have only worked with a few hounds so I would expect they have flea resistant individuals as well. The German shorthaired pointers and English setters I worked with seemed to have a high percentage of flea resistance while the English pointers seemed to have a much lower percentage of flea resistance. I have owned 3 chihuahuas in my life they all lived to be almost 20, 2 of them were flea resistant while one wasn’t. I would say it is a common enough trait to treat it seriously as a breeding attribute.
I’d think the hard part would be how to systematically identify a flea-resistant dog and breed for that. I mean, you’d have to control for diet and a host of other variables.
I can believe that fleas might not be attracted as much to particular dogs though; I see it with people and mosquitoes all the time, albeit in a totally uncontrolled fashion. I mean, I can go in the yard and have a mosquito or two buzz me a little, while my wife and sons will be swatting them off their clothes and skin left and right.
I am the same way when it comes to fleas and mosquitos, I will only get occasional bites even while fishing at night on the river with no shirt on.
I first recognized the pattern when I had a littler of 13 pups. Every day I would come home from work and spray them with a little Windex while standing on a clean white sheet, I would then brush them and see how many fles fell off. Some of the pups had dozens while other ad maybe one or two, it was always the same dogs. I continued this practice throughout my life and even did it with some of my friends dogs who had kennels. Some dogs just don’t get fleas and it is not a rare thing at all.
My dogs all get the Lyme vaccine and I apply flea & tick prevention meds. The Dane and the boxer have been fine but the German shepherd has Lyme and Anaplasmosis in his system but has never had any symptoms. It’s called an asymptomatic infection. He’s had it for 3 years but he’s fine. The vet said to just watch him and if he shows signs, we’ll start treating it. I’m guessing it has a lot to do with his coat. It’s so thick that ticks can get in unnoticed. I use topical prevention meds so it might not be getting all the way through. The oral meds are so expensive.
I’ve never had a dog with fleas. I think it’s too cold around here.