The Great Invasion
It was a sneak attack.
A sneak attack with serious numbers, soldiers in the thousands marching on our house. Their objective? Our dogs.
Actually, since our dogs were the ones who brought them into the house . . . maybe they were being used like Trojan horses?
OK, enough of the war metaphors. It's been a horrible, no-good week. For lots of reasons, including the unexpected death of a beautiful, well-loved friend and neighbor. I'm not going there, that's too tender still. But for those who feel their lives are too boring, I will share the excitement of my absolutely anything-but-boring week. You could have spent hours picking fat, blood-sucking monsters off your dog in 100+degree heat! Doesn't that sound like fun???
Let me rewind a bit.
We first realized we had a problem at the beginning of the week. Our dogs are outdoor dogs, and honestly, I am not a cuddly dog owner. I do not snuggle with my dogs, especially during the summer when they are shedding. They do not hang out indoors with the family, and they are absolutely never allowed in my bedroom. But earlier in the week we had some record breaking heat days, and since Rue outgrew her crate, on extra hot days both dogs spend the day in the kids' bathroom. In the evening I had to go to a curriculum night at M's school, and before I left I asked J to take the dogs back outside.
On my way home I noticed I had a text from Terence telling me that there were ticks in the bathroom. Apparently, J had noticed them trying to escape the bathroom in droves when he got the dogs out. Honestly, I thought Terence was off his rocker. Ticks???? I had never in my life seen a tick before, especially not indoors. Don't ticks live outdoors in woodsy places?
When I got home, I went straight to the bathroom. J, in a flash of brilliance, had outlined the entire doorway in duct tape, and there were little gray/black beetle-like things stuck in the tape. So clearly we had some kind of problem. But ticks??? I went a-googling and decided no way they were ticks. They didn't look anything like any picture of ticks on the internet, and no one suggested ticks would be inside a house. So I texted Terence that they weren't ticks and kept looking for more info. An hour later, M and I had looked at every gross picture of every kind of possible insect that was likely to be in our house. And nothing matched.
Except possibly, maybe a very young brown dog tick. My heart sank. So I took out a flashlight and went to see if I could find a tick on one of the dogs. That would make it obvious. To my dismay, I found four (FOUR!!!) of the things on Rue's ears. Small ones, mind you. I didn't bother to check Willow-- she's got black fur and it was very late at night. But I assumed that Willow probably had a few ticks too.
In the morning, I got a shock. OH MY GOSH. Rue had a lot of ticks. Several dozens. A couple of them were even large, well-fed ones that looked more like all the internet pictures of ticks. But Willow. Poor Willow! HUNDREDS. I am not kidding. They were so hidden in her thick fur. So many tiny baby ones. And dozens of large monstrous ones.
I nearly puked.
After more poking around and internet research and panicked calls to schedule an exterminator, we learned yes, we had an indoor tick infestation. Probably the dogs had been under attack for awhile (mostly Willow) and bringing them into the bathroom had brought all the juveniles out of hiding, hoping for a meal. YUCK!!!!! We found a ton in the bathroom, and a few in both kids' room. I about had a coronary. (The only good news is that brown dog ticks apparently don't like people. Which explains why none of us ever got bitten, even though the dogs were being eaten alive.)
The tick invasion of our house led to several long, long, long days of serious cleaning and prep work. We tick shampooed the dogs on Thursday and scheduled the pest control to come on Saturday for the major treatment. Saturday morning we went to shampoo the dogs one more time before we had to leave home all day (all of us, including the pets, had to stay away after the tick treatment). Rue looked pretty good. I only had to break out the tweezers for a few ticks that had somehow survived. But Willow???? Terence and I tag-teamed her, both of us combing and plucking with tweezers for three hours. We pulled hundreds of still-alive ticks off of her. I wanted to puke, repeatedly. I wanted my life to fast-forward, please, let this be over!! But no. And by the time we gave up (we were out of time and all of us, including Willow, couldn't stand it any longer) we'd probably only removed half the ticks. The good news is that our Advantix drops arrived also (thank you Amazon Prime!!!) and after that treatment, the ticks have just been dropping off Willow. When we check her again in a couple days, hopefully there won't be any plucking to be done. I'm praying for that, anyway.
So. On the plus side, my house is cleaner than it's been in years. Even my walls have been vacuumed and almost every piece of clothing we own (and definitely all the bedding) has been washed on the "sanitary" cycle. On the negative side, I keep getting mental pictures of swollen ticks in my head resulting in serious nausea, and I keep imagining creepy crawlies on my skin.
Yep. Life is never dull!!
A sneak attack with serious numbers, soldiers in the thousands marching on our house. Their objective? Our dogs.
Actually, since our dogs were the ones who brought them into the house . . . maybe they were being used like Trojan horses?
OK, enough of the war metaphors. It's been a horrible, no-good week. For lots of reasons, including the unexpected death of a beautiful, well-loved friend and neighbor. I'm not going there, that's too tender still. But for those who feel their lives are too boring, I will share the excitement of my absolutely anything-but-boring week. You could have spent hours picking fat, blood-sucking monsters off your dog in 100+degree heat! Doesn't that sound like fun???
Let me rewind a bit.
We first realized we had a problem at the beginning of the week. Our dogs are outdoor dogs, and honestly, I am not a cuddly dog owner. I do not snuggle with my dogs, especially during the summer when they are shedding. They do not hang out indoors with the family, and they are absolutely never allowed in my bedroom. But earlier in the week we had some record breaking heat days, and since Rue outgrew her crate, on extra hot days both dogs spend the day in the kids' bathroom. In the evening I had to go to a curriculum night at M's school, and before I left I asked J to take the dogs back outside.
On my way home I noticed I had a text from Terence telling me that there were ticks in the bathroom. Apparently, J had noticed them trying to escape the bathroom in droves when he got the dogs out. Honestly, I thought Terence was off his rocker. Ticks???? I had never in my life seen a tick before, especially not indoors. Don't ticks live outdoors in woodsy places?
When I got home, I went straight to the bathroom. J, in a flash of brilliance, had outlined the entire doorway in duct tape, and there were little gray/black beetle-like things stuck in the tape. So clearly we had some kind of problem. But ticks??? I went a-googling and decided no way they were ticks. They didn't look anything like any picture of ticks on the internet, and no one suggested ticks would be inside a house. So I texted Terence that they weren't ticks and kept looking for more info. An hour later, M and I had looked at every gross picture of every kind of possible insect that was likely to be in our house. And nothing matched.
Except possibly, maybe a very young brown dog tick. My heart sank. So I took out a flashlight and went to see if I could find a tick on one of the dogs. That would make it obvious. To my dismay, I found four (FOUR!!!) of the things on Rue's ears. Small ones, mind you. I didn't bother to check Willow-- she's got black fur and it was very late at night. But I assumed that Willow probably had a few ticks too.
In the morning, I got a shock. OH MY GOSH. Rue had a lot of ticks. Several dozens. A couple of them were even large, well-fed ones that looked more like all the internet pictures of ticks. But Willow. Poor Willow! HUNDREDS. I am not kidding. They were so hidden in her thick fur. So many tiny baby ones. And dozens of large monstrous ones.
I nearly puked.
After more poking around and internet research and panicked calls to schedule an exterminator, we learned yes, we had an indoor tick infestation. Probably the dogs had been under attack for awhile (mostly Willow) and bringing them into the bathroom had brought all the juveniles out of hiding, hoping for a meal. YUCK!!!!! We found a ton in the bathroom, and a few in both kids' room. I about had a coronary. (The only good news is that brown dog ticks apparently don't like people. Which explains why none of us ever got bitten, even though the dogs were being eaten alive.)
The tick invasion of our house led to several long, long, long days of serious cleaning and prep work. We tick shampooed the dogs on Thursday and scheduled the pest control to come on Saturday for the major treatment. Saturday morning we went to shampoo the dogs one more time before we had to leave home all day (all of us, including the pets, had to stay away after the tick treatment). Rue looked pretty good. I only had to break out the tweezers for a few ticks that had somehow survived. But Willow???? Terence and I tag-teamed her, both of us combing and plucking with tweezers for three hours. We pulled hundreds of still-alive ticks off of her. I wanted to puke, repeatedly. I wanted my life to fast-forward, please, let this be over!! But no. And by the time we gave up (we were out of time and all of us, including Willow, couldn't stand it any longer) we'd probably only removed half the ticks. The good news is that our Advantix drops arrived also (thank you Amazon Prime!!!) and after that treatment, the ticks have just been dropping off Willow. When we check her again in a couple days, hopefully there won't be any plucking to be done. I'm praying for that, anyway.
So. On the plus side, my house is cleaner than it's been in years. Even my walls have been vacuumed and almost every piece of clothing we own (and definitely all the bedding) has been washed on the "sanitary" cycle. On the negative side, I keep getting mental pictures of swollen ticks in my head resulting in serious nausea, and I keep imagining creepy crawlies on my skin.
Yep. Life is never dull!!
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