Using garlic as a dog-flea repellent for the skin disease treatment

Abstract

Irritation with flea is one of the main cause in relevant to dog healthy. The aim of this study was to use garlic as a repellent for getting rid of those parasites. Four hundred grams of garlic crushed in fresh preparations were dropped onto the ground in the area (3 ½ X 2 Feet) of each dog-raising every other day in the 1^st week, two other day in the 2^nd, 3^rd week and three other day in the 4^th week. Three dogs (mixed breed, gender, similar age), large (30 kg), medium (12 kg) and small (8 kg)–sized, raised in the same environment were used in the experiment. Number of fleas, levels of skin appearances and levels of hair proliferation (the both latter designed in five categories) were recorded on each area of each animal and evaluated by statistical analysis. In the first week, The number of fleas on the medium-sized and the large-sized dogs were mostly on the head/face, neck, middle back, left body, right body and the tail, whereas the four limbs had lesser of them. There was a reducing pattern of the number of parasites starting from the 2^nd time of 1^st week (neck, back, metacarpus) then much reduced in the 3^rd time of the 1^st week (both front and hind limbs) and the 2^nd week (head/face) until to the 6^th week (neck, left front limb) (p<0.05). However, the small-sized dog had very few number of fleas comparing to those of the other two (p<0.01). The tails had more or less of number of fleas during the experiment and had a difficult tendency to decrease the number of fleas in the 10^th week (p<0.05). For the skin appearance, it was found that the small-sized dog had the worst of it (4^th, 3^rd and 2^nd level); severe inflammation in the head/face, neck, body and limbs, meanwhile, the medium-sized and large-sized dogs had only the 1^st-2^nd and the 0-1^st level of skin lesion, respectively. This might be that the small-sized dog had an allergy to the flea and showed this impact in severity. Nevertheless, the skin lesion had a decreasing pattern similar to that of number of fleas. The lower the number of flea was, the better the skin appearance showed. This was clearly seen in the 2^nd, 3^rd time of the 1^st week (on the neck) (p<0.01), and apparently appeared in the 2^nd (back, left body) (p<0.05) and the 6^th week (the right body) (p<0.01). Similar result occurred to the hair proliferation; the hair on all of the most areas (head/face, neck, middle back, body, four limbs, feet and tail) slowly growing up in the 3^rd time of the 1^st week, then apparently appearing in the 2^nd and 6^th week (p<0.01) and finally nearly fully grown up hair occurring in the 10^th and 16^th week. The result indicated that the flea (both larva and adult) died because of close attach to the garlic, then the skin was in repair process and hair proliferation occurred. It was concluded that garlic could be used as repellent for flea control and treatment of skin disease in the 6^th to the 10^th week.