Winston’s Well-Being…

Yikes!!! Hitchhikers - I Don't Want To Be A Host!

How this happened, I don’t know…maybe the walk in the woods, maybe from the neighbors cat that jumped into our yard that I chased away because he didn’t belong here, maybe that very scary trip to the dog pen, umm, park…however, whatever…I have fleas…

In all honesty, I am so embarrassed…Mom said no worries, there is plenty we can do to send them packing, keep them way gone and, she said, these days everybody has them…maybe because of the weather being so weird. Still, it’s hard to swallow being a …host.

So the story is this time of year they look for a warm body and jump on to have a meal and then off they go until later. The idea that I am a meal is very, very creepy. It seems they bite and suck your blood, the little vipers…stick around for a very little while and then drop off and digest. They wait in my bed, on Mom’s bed, in the rug, on the couch, between the cracks of the wood floor…just about anywhere. Mom said they jump 150 times their height and get away pretty fast.

The crazy thing is I didn’t even know they were on me! Mom wouldn’t have known except that I gave her one of those belly up hellos and while she was doing the rubdown she saw them…She took me way by surprise when she scooped me up and brought me right to the sink for a bbbbath!. She seemed to have the smelly shampoo right there waiting…how did that happen?

So she started with shampoo all around my neck - a big thick ring around the collar (sounds kind of catchy, no?) and a big line along my back to my tail. Mom said if you start with shampoo around your neck fleas won’t run up on your face where they are hard to shampoo away. Sounds gross but it makes sense. So Mom lathered me up…kind of like a body massage, not too bad…but then she just let me sit there for a while…very unexpected and kind of annoying. I was doing my best to cooperate with the whole ordeal but this waiting thing really pushed me to the limit. Mom said it was necessary to kill the fleas, a small price to pay I guess so I waited, not that I had a choice. Finally she rinsed me off and I couldn’t believe how many of the little buggers there were floating down the drain. It was really gross.

Mom was very surprised that with all the fleas she saw I wasn’t itchy at all. It seems that if a dog isn’t too sensitive to flea bites and especially their saliva (didn’t know they had saliva), there wouldn’t be much itching. Well, I guess that‘s a good thing too. Thankfully, my skin wasn’t too bad and the worst of it was the smelly shampoo. The vet said tomorrow Mom should put some oily stuff on my back and it would keep fleas off me for a month…pretty good.

But!!! He also said it wasn’t a bad idea to use a little flea spray once in a while when I went to a place that more fleas could be jumping on me…I hate smelly spray! No Spray, No Way…I decided it was time to hide in bed…maybe she would just forget! So off I went, ready for a good nap after all this but…hey, where are the beds?!

It seems Mom knew that the fleas would just hop off when they finished their… blood meal! So she decided that while I was in the bath, my beds and Celeste’s too would have to be washed in the hottest water possible and then right in the dryer, hottest temperature too, just to be sure every one of the little beasts were …gone, dead gone. So I wandered around, looking and looking, where the heck was I supposed to rest?? I found Celeste behind the den couch in the corner so in I went, nice spot for a Dachshund, private, small, no one can get there but us and if you peek under the couch, you can see if someone is coming…Also, a bonus…we found that squishy ball that disappeared a few weeks ago!

So, behind the couch I go to snuggle with Celeste…but….yikes!!! She was scratching, chewing her back leg and really couldn’t stop….NO WAY!!! Couldn’t be, no, not more FLEAS!!

I Am Way Out Of Here!! So I dashed out from behind the couch and hung out in the hallway, kind of sad like, waiting for mom to come through so I could help her notice that Celeste was now the host! 

There was Mom, she is sooo great! Now our beds are all fresh and cozy, still toasty from the dryer…”Oh thanks for the Kisses Winnie! You smell kind of like medicine but you sure are cute…and no bugs! Nice,huh? Give me a kiss Win,,, come on…how about a kiss??? Hey, where are you going buddy?”  Well Mom, I’m just trying to kind of drag you over here to Celeste, you know, Celeste who can never do wrong??  WELL, take a look, she is a HOST!

You may have noticed that dogs don’t talk but we never do lie…I just sat in front of the den doorway and when Mom came close, I just backed up…and there was Celeste, she was sitting in front of the couch now and industriously chewing her back leg…I felt kind of bad for Mom…she said “oh no…let’s see Celeste”. Of course, Celeste tried to run but Mom was there lickety split, scooped her up and turned her belly up…there they were, more fleas and little bumps where they bit Celeste. Mom made one of those sad breathy sounds and got a towel for Celeste’s bath.

The sad thing for Celeste is she is sensitive to flea saliva and even though the fleas are dead and gone, she is still really itchy. Mom said its’ like mosquito bites (that’s another story) and thankfully she will feel better in a few days. Too bad for Celeste, after her kill the bug bath, and waiting for them to die, she had another shampoo that was supposed to make her skin feel better and Celeste had to wait again for that to work…she was really whining…I can understand that.

So, Mom was ok about the whole thing but she did tell Dad that she thought we should treat the house. Whoa!!! How would a person give the whole house a bath??? Can’t wait to see this.

The next day, Mom came home with a few jars of this powder stuff. She read the label to us and it said it wasn’t an insecticide but it killed fleas (and other kinds of bugs) by kind of drying them up…hummm…doesn’t sound smelly. Mom said she was glad it wasn’t something that was toxic to us or anyone else but the bugs and it would stay deep in the carpets and cracks in the floor for quite some time. She was annoyed that it said she shouldn’t vacuum for three days…she vacuums every day! Oh well, take a break Mom!

AAAnyway…It took quite a while and also quite a few jars of stuff but at the end, Mom said she felt confident that the fleas, dust mites, ants and anything else would be…dead. She is now kind of worried about the yard so she will be going off to the garden place to see what they say would be safe to sprinkle outside …nothing too toxic since that would be really bad for us and the environment.

“And Now…” She said, kind of like a Ceremony…and as she scooped both of us up she said,

“Time to apply the oily stuff!!!”  OK Babies,” kiss, kiss “who loves you???” kiss, kiss…Yuck, Yuck, Yuck Mom…Trick, Trick, Trick…we hate the oily stuff!!! Last year, every month…but hey, I don’t remember any fleas, Hummm, wonder if that was it?”