Thursday, July 9, 2009

Fleas

Ok so, my dogs have been driving me nuts. It turns out, they have fleas, yes even the hairless one, though not as many. Now before anybody gives me advice, I've tried just about everything. I put the stuff on their necks, put poison in the yard, gave them a bath (multiple times) and they keep coming back.

This is the first year I've ever had trouble with fleas. And I am about to pull my hair out dealing with them. I just don't know what else to do. Maybe I need a multiprong attack. Maybe. I treated the yard (again) my wife got some kind of stinky carpet stuff to take care of anything that might be in there, and we gave the dogs yet another flea dip. All at relatively the same time, and that may be why I failed before and how this time I will succeed.

I can hope anyway right?

I took the dogs down to the dogwash on Bluffton Parkway. Basically it is a place to wash your dog much like you wash your car. I took them down there, in the hopes of flea elimination. I had mixed results there. While you can wash your dog there, and it is a bit easier, because you aren't chasing your dog around the tub, instead you can stand right next to the dog, but you wind up as wet anyway, except with not as hurt in the back as you would bending over chasing your dog around the tub.

From here it is an exorcism. Because there is no more chemicals I can add to the yard and/or my dogs skin. Right?

3 comments:

Aunt Bea said...

Two words - diatomaceous earth.
Not the kind for pools (too many chemical additives, and poisonous) but food-grade. You powder your dogs with it. You powder the yard with it. You powder your carpets and chairs and sofas and beds with it.

It is totally harmless to animals and humans. But it acts like little shards of glass to bugs, cuts them open. Rain doesn't wash it away unless it floods. Baths wash it off. And bugs can't become immune to it.

Mad Hatter said...

Can I find it locally? Or do I use the internet?

Aunt Bea said...

Locally is difficult. I think OW used it on his but I don't know where he got it. A vet might know of a source. Locally, you will mostly find the stuff for pools - altho Beaufort County and SC are not really known for being ecologically correct, so doubtful. Try the Internet. The stuff is actually cheaper by the pound than the poisons.