With more people turning to natural control methods for pests and insects, considering friendlier flea repellents for your pets is a good idea. There are some effective and safe ways you can help your pet stay free of fleas and keep your home clear of flea infestations with natural methods. Here are a few you can try:

Lemon juice can make a good insect repellent. By quartering some lemons, covering them with boiling water, and letting them steep overnight, you can make your own flea repellent. Spray your dog carefully behind the ears – never in the face or near its eyes – and mist the rest of his body with the lemon juice.

Essential oils also make a good flea repellent. Combine 10 drops of sweet almond oil with 10 drops of lavender and 5 drops of cedarwood oil. Applying one or two drops to your pet’s skin between his shoulder blades every day can help keep fleas away. However, it is important to be very careful when using essential oils as animals have died from ingesting them. Pennyroyal oil, in particular, has led to the accidental deaths of dogs and cats which have ingested the oil while grooming themselves.

A popular folk remedy for making pets more flea resistant is to include brewers yeast in their diet. However, this is disputed by Dr Michael Drydon, Professor of Veterinary Parasitology at Kansas University who explains that when raising fleas for experiments they actually feed them brewers yeast. Dr Drydon claims that fleas “…love it. The yeast increases their numbers by forty to fifty percent.”

There are, however, some foods your pet can eat to deter fleas from hitching a ride inside their fur that do not have negative press. Scents of foods ingested can be transmitted through the pet’s skin and may help to prevent fleas. Try adding some garlic to your dog’s daily meals and putting a spoonful of apple cider vinegar in his water to make your pet’s skin less appealing to little biting pests. However, it is naturally important to make sure that your pet will drink his water with apple cider vinegar in it. If it won’t, give him clean water and use a diluted mixture of apple cider vinegar and water as a flea prevention spray.

The best protection against flea infestation is actually good health. It has been observed that animals on a healthy, mainly raw food diet are less prone to getting fleas than those who are fed mainly processed foods. Fleas are attracted to more vulnerable animals so keeping your pet in peak condition and paying attention to diet is the safest natural flea prevention you can use.