It's never good when you pop a dog into the bath, and as their coat becomes saturated, you realize you have unwanted company in the form of fleas.
In the "olden days" of pet grooming, dealing with fleas and ticks was a regular occurrence for those livingin climates where external parasites are a problem. Before modern flea and tick preventatives were developed and widely used, many, if not most, pets arrived for grooming with hitchhikers hiding in their coats. Groomers regularly doused animals with toxic dips. Speaking for myself, I am glad those days are over.
Today, many groomers have a strict "no flea or tick" policy and send animals home when those critters are detected. The current belief for many is that "fleas and ticks should be dealt with at home." The reasons for this are good ones. An animal carrying parasites can quickly spread them through the grooming space, necessitating a deep cleaning and poisoning effort that is time-consuming, expensive, and has potential health risks. Ridding the animal of fleas or ticks is also a time suck and requires specialty products and techniques to be effective. One parasite-carrying animal can throw a monkey wrench in the day's schedule.
If you choose not to deal with fleas and ticks, that should be made clear to existing and potential customers. When each animal is checked in, you will need to do a close examination as soon as they arrive to determine if parasites are present, then send the animal home if any are found. This will likely not be popular with your customers, but it is a valid choice for your business.
Sometimes, even if you check the animal, you may be surprised at bathtime by a lone flea or two that escaped notice. It is a good idea to have a plan in place for when this happens. Keeping a good flea shampoo on hand for these cases is helpful, but if you do not have any, saturating the coat with any shampoo and allowing it to remain on the pet for ten minutes will kill most fleas. Unfortunately, their survival instinct is strong, and they will hide in nostrils, eye corners, lip folds, ear canals, and other places where the shampoo cannot reach them, so it is nearly impossible to be confident you got them all. Ticks will need to be manually removed as you find them.
Customers should be notified that there will be extra charges for external parasite removal, so they are not surprised at pick-up. It is also a good idea to educate them that flea shampoo has no repellant properties and that as soon as their pet goes home, new fleas will hop on and no doubt enjoy snacking on their freshly cleaned pet.
Deciding what your policies about handling external parasites are is something you should consider so your customers can know what to expect if their pet has a problem with them.
