"Unfortunately, licking doesn't get rid of fleas."

For what it's worth: Our vet told us when you see a flea on an animal you're seeing it at mealtime. It jumps on for a quick meal of blood and jumps off, burrows into carpet (indoors) or grass (outdoors) and lays eggs to make, eventually, more hungry fleas. Pet collars, etc., just make them jump off faster or inhibit them from jumping on the begin with. To get rid of a flea infestation, yes, you treat the animal, but you also treat your carpet and your yard.

Back in the day the treatment of choice was rose dust. We would sprinkle it on the carpet and leave the house for a few hours, then put on paint masks and vacuum thoroughly. Ditto the front and back yard (they were small) except for the vacuuming part. We did this twice about three days apart in order to get the fleas that were hatched after we killed off the first generation.

I haven't seen rose dust on the shelves for a while, so it's probably been determined to be too toxic for home use. I assume there are less poisonous alternatives out there today. However, if you try this approach with any insecticide you need to be EXTREMELY careful how you handle it and clean it up afterwords. Our kids were in their early teens then, so crawling babies weren't a concern, for example.

The thing is, it worked. We never had another flea infestation the whole time we lived in that house with our animals, which was close to seven years.

Frank2135