You love your pets, but did you know your four-legged companions can be hotbeds for disease-carrying pests? Whether its ticks, fleas or mosquitoes, nasty insects are attracted to domesticated animals and the household items they love. Even if you treat your dogs and cats for fleas and ticks, outside watering bowls can serve as a breeding ground for unwanted mosquitoes.

So how do you protect your animals and your home from pests at the same time? One often overlooked solution is lawn care and its associated outdoor pest control methods. By maintaining the quality of your pet playground, i.e. your backyard, you can improve your chances of having a pest-free home. Here are some ways to help prevent the various pest infestations associated with your furry friends:

Tick Prevention: One of the smallest, yet most dangerous eight-legged miscreants is the tick. Riddled with diseases such as Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, ticks love to latch on to pets like cats and dogs and can greatly jeopardize their well-being. Since they are typically found in vegetation, heavily wooded areas and other shrubbery and grass, it’s important to have your lawn and outdoor perimeter trimmed, treated and maintained to cut down the environment for such pests.

Flea Prevention: About the size of a sesame seed, fleas love to jump on to pets and then into your home. In an effort to complement animal-specific flea treatment, it’s important to maintain the outdoor areas that both fleas and pets love to be in. Frequently found in shady areas or in moist soil, fleas can be cut down drastically by maintaining your lawn with pet-safe insect treatment and regular care.

Mosquito Prevention: Attracted to just about anything with a pulse, mosquitoes can prove to be one of the most annoying pests in and around your home – able to infect a pet with heart-worms and then infect you with diseases such as the West Nile Virus. Advanced mosquito control techniques can help not only your animals, but your health as well. Assist professional prevention efforts by limiting the amount of standing water in pet bowls or bird baths that can bring mosquitoes dangerously close to your home’s perimeter.

Helping your pets stay pest free also helps maintain your home’s well-being. By taking care of your outdoor perimeter and maintaining the health of your lawn, unwanted insects are much less likely to call your home theirs. If you’re not sure where to start, contact your local lawn care specialists at Lawn Doctor for more information on pest prevention, for you and your pets.