Last night I was treating an area on the dog that she had scratched into a raw, oozy mess. She does this every once in a while, and I wind up tormenting her by holding her down to clean the area and then subjecting her to wearing a shirt that covers the swollen mess, preventing her from continuing to scratch at it.
Poor thing.
While cleaning her wound, I noticed a small, brown freckle off to the side of it, near her belly. It wasn't just any freckle. It was a moving freckle--a tiny, mobile freckle with tiny, minuscule legs.
ick.
I tried to remove it, thinking it was a flea, but this freckle wasn't coming off the dog. It was a tick, and it had already started its meal.
Freaking out, and suddenly feeling very itchy, I started going over the dog and found several more, barely visible, ticks. Despite the fact that it was midnight and I had been planning on going to bed, the next hour was spent bathing the dog, throwing out her bed, stripping the bedding off our bed, which she had just been laying on for hours beforehand, and pulling at least 30 ticks in various stages of engorgement off of the dog.
I shudder just retelling it.
I applied Frontline Plus, which prevents flea and tick infestations, all the while kicking myself that I hadn't been better about regularly using it on her. We've had her for over three years and this is the first problem we've ever had with fleas or ticks. I let myself be lulled into thinking we didn't need to use it. Foolish me.
Now, I am completely grossed out and investigating how many pounds of chemicals I need to buy to de-tickify our lawn and home.
And I still constantly feel itchy.
3 comments:
You should be ok with the frontline for your entire home. The dog becomes a giant flea bomb while he/she is wearing it. the yard is another issue. THere are plenty of spray on chemicals that kill all the critters. The one we use for the yard is Cutter. Best of luck!
Now, believe it or not, your dog could develop Lyme Disease. Or the doggy version of it. Mine did and requred mega doses of antibiotics. You may want (or not) to call your vet about it.
-gina-
Thanksa Gina.
I was worried about that too. The vet said that we wouldn't know for a month or two because it takes time for the disease to manifest, and for the blood test for it to show anything.
I will feel so awful if she has it.
I'm hoping she won't get it based on the fact that her ticks weren't deer ticks, but Amercian Brown Dog Ticks.
Still that's no guarantee.
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