My Dog Has Fleas

eine kleine background music while you read
more

The dog has fleas.
Curmudgeon cat has fleas.
Mom cat has fleas.
The weightless balls of fluff all have fleas.
I have fleas.

That last was confirmed yesterday. I was driving to work, waiting for the red light to change, when I noticed some little black specks merrily hopping around the front of my crisp white shirt. Oh, great. Now my car has fleas.

The front porch has fleas. I stepped out there yesterday afternoon and immediately my nether limbs, from knee bone to toe bone, were covered in little black specks. Little black specks that jumped on me faster than I could brush them off. Nothing to be done for that except step back into the house to brush them off. Great, now my carpet has fleas. I've always hated this carpet anyway. Maybe I can talk the managment into replacing it. With linoleum. Lemonade, right?

The Fab Five have only recently, in the past 2 or 3 days, expanded their range to include the bedroom. This afternoon when I got home I found patches kitten and tiger kitten sleeping in the folds of the squunched-up blanket. Oh now this is just dandy. My bed has fleas.

The dog kept me awake most of last night, squeaking and whining and panting in frustration as he tried to pick all the fleas out of his chow-thick fur. Curmudgeon cat and I will be spending Caturday morning at the vet, getting shots and drugs for his flea allergy.

Yesterday I stopped at the vet's on the way home from work and picked up enough Advantage for all of us. $107.

The vet asked first how old the kittens were [they have to be 8 weeks for Advantage]. I can only make educated guesses, but I fibbed and said they were 8 weeks old. Based on their eyes being fully open and their coordination being pretty good when first I spotten them, I'm thinking they're very close to 8 weeks, and very definitely no younger than 7 weeks.

It doesn't matter. They're getting dosed now. Even if the rest of us were willing to wait another week, just to be sure [we're not], the risk of flea anemia is just too great with an infestation like this.

Applying the stuff to curmudgeon cat and the dog was easy. Did that last night, no problemo. Squirt squirt, here's a bite of chicken for your cooperation. The Fab Five, on the other hand, are a challenge. They will let me get very close to them now, and in turn will get very close to me, but touching them is iffy. Stealth is called for.

I fed them well last night, but a bit lightly this morning. Then I heaped the plate full of yummy kitten food and set it right next to the chair where I'm sitting now, blogging all things flea. I opened all the tiny-cat tubes of Advantage and propped them on the keyboard. As each furry body approached and fell to eating with abandon, i slowly reached down and squirted out part of one tubeful onto each pair of shoulder blades I could reach.

Three down, two to go. Mom cat wasn't too too difficult, skittish though she is, mostly because she's a slightly larger target than the weightless balls of fluff. Thing 1 and Thing 2, the two tailless blues, are tamer than all the others, and can actually be stroked while chowing down. They were easier than I expected.

Tiger kitten and patches kitten are another kettle of fish.
-- what did you do all day saturday?
-- crawled around the apartment on hands and knees, ambushing wild kittens.

I [heart] global warming. Global warming?! What's that got to do with fleas? ok, make that global climate change. Fleas don't like dry weather, and the past few years have been very dry here, unusual for this area, which used to have an annual rainfall of 60 or 70 inches. The trees are stressed and everybody's lawn is green only where the touhghest weeds are growing.

But the lack of fleas has been lovely. No more. It rained buckets not very long ago, and all those formerly dormant, now hungry fleas have come out to feast on the rest of us. I haven't mentioned yet that I still have flea spray to buy, for the porch and the car. And then I'll have to move the 8 of us to somewhere before I can flea bomb the house.

This was not in the budget. Not any of it.

Oh, well. Y'all will just have to avoid this part of the state until I can save up enough money again for that brake job and CV axle I'd been saving up for. The roads in my immediate vicinty are going to remain unsafe for a bit longer.


Update:
Tiger kitten and patches kitten have finally been gotcha'd. I can go to sleep now.