FLEAS!! GAH!

Buster at the pond protecting the fish from predator frogs, snakes and lizards. He is a Boston / Pug and 8 years old in the photo. View attachment 340495



View attachment 340496


Aaaww, he's beautiful! And I remember your pond!! Because I loved it so much! But I'd forgotten it was yours, hadn't remembered your username linked to this wonderful pond that makes me smile every time I see it! The alligator is still my current favourite decoration :D I really love the mix of the natural looking way the pond is built and has sections, and almost looks like a natural waterway you've happened across, and the lovely real plants, but also mixed with fun fake decor that brings a lot of character! I hope some of it also keeps away predators? I ask since our pond was uncovered for years, until a heron discovered it and mostly emptied it overnight.. or at least in between the time discovered there were losses and why, and the time it took for my dad to build a cover which he did immediately). But the cover does spoil the look of the thing and make it harder to work with. Not sure how much I trust that a plastic heron would keep real ones at bay...?
Precious who does not like her picture taken and hides when she sees the camera. She is an unknown mix the vet refers to as a cattle dog. Her age is estimated at between 8 and 10 years. She was found running alone in the woods skin and bone with most of her hair missing from chewing and scratching at fleas and ticks. She is currently on gabapentin to relieve some of the effects of Lyme that she contacted after being deserted in the woods.

Oh, that poor girl!! What a horrible experience for her, breaks my heart thinking about it! Unless she escaped and got lost or something unusual like that (which would still be the owners fault for not having her well secured/trained/microchipped etc), then she was likely dumped and abandoned there, right? I know it happens a lot, but I still can't wrap my brain around anyone doing that. How they can do it and live with themselves, it's so cruel. So many other options that don't mean abandoning a dog to die terrified and alone in the wilderness!!

Getting angry now, so going to focus on the happier ending she found...!
Linda introduced her to Buster at the local SPCA where she volunteers.
❤️ She's an angel for doing that, I think I'd get along well with your wife, she sounds like a person with a huge heart! Is she also the gardener who has all those healthy plants growing? Or you, or combined?
They hit it off so well that we decided to let Buster adopt her. Precious is bonded to me. Buster to Linda.
❤️❤️❤️ Nice that you each have a dog that chose you, and that they get along so well! She looks like such a sweetheart as well! I can definitely see the cattle dog strongly in her face and head for sure, maybe mixed with a bully breed from her chest/sitting stance, she's built rather like a staffie, although it's super hard to pick out traits from one photo and angle, and when there's more than 2-3 breeds mixed in there, so easy to be mistaken too. Whatever she is, I can confirm the name fits - she's absolutely Precious. ❤️

I feel deceived though! Your name is Oldspartan, but you're not old! I'm not fooled by that fake beard disguise!!
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To be fair .. This is Patches the cat. Just turned three but is about 1 1/2 in this photo. She is another one that flees when she sees the camera. She is not as grouchy as she looks in the photo. Patches is bonded to herself although she will lay on my lap nightly at about 7PM for a belly rub.View attachment 340498

It definitely wouldn't be fair to leave out Patches! What a sweet evening routine, where she knows you'll be sitting down for a while and she can get her fuss. I remember one of our cats always doing that with my dad when he finally sat down of an evening. He was a man who was always doing something and didn't sit down to relax for long, and also claimed not to like cats much since he's a bird and dog person (and he did genuinely hate when they hunted, especially if they killed a bird), but he was just as soft with the cats and they/we always had them, so he protested too much, me thinks. Would often catch him fussing and talking to one of the cats in a really sweet way when he didn't realise anyone was around, and he'd be embarrassed when I'd tease him about how I thought he didn't like cats?

Just a running joke in the family I guess. So when he'd finally sit on the sofa at around 9pm, Cinders would immediately jump onto his lap and sweetly ask for pets, and he'd protest "Hey! What's this! I've only just sat down!" or pretend grumble about not liking cats, while she stretched out on his chest and had plenty of fuss, and they'd both fall asleep there. I have photos of them like that to prove it too! Not on here, but it was lovely.

Patches also looks so much like one of my auntie's cats, Smudge, right down to the facial markings, which is why she named him Smudge. She's a pretty girl! Doesn't look grumpy to me either, just has the same sort of expression I pull when anyone points a camera at me! I feel your camera phobia, Patches, I understand!
 
Aaaww, he's beautiful! And I remember your pond!! Because I loved it so much! But I'd forgotten it was yours, hadn't remembered your username linked to this wonderful pond that makes me smile every time I see it! The alligator is still my current favourite decoration :D I really love the mix of the natural looking way the pond is built and has sections, and almost looks like a natural waterway you've happened across, and the lovely real plants, but also mixed with fun fake decor that brings a lot of character! I hope some of it also keeps away predators? I ask since our pond was uncovered for years, until a heron discovered it and mostly emptied it overnight.. or at least in between the time discovered there were losses and why, and the time it took for my dad to build a cover which he did immediately). But the cover does spoil the look of the thing and make it harder to work with. Not sure how much I trust that a plastic heron would keep real ones at bay...?


Oh, that poor girl!! What a horrible experience for her, breaks my heart thinking about it! Unless she escaped and got lost or something unusual like that (which would still be the owners fault for not having her well secured/trained/microchipped etc), then she was likely dumped and abandoned there, right? I know it happens a lot, but I still can't wrap my brain around anyone doing that. How they can do it and live with themselves, it's so cruel. So many other options that don't mean abandoning a dog to die terrified and alone in the wilderness!!

Getting angry now, so going to focus on the happier ending she found...!

❤️ She's an angel for doing that, I think I'd get along well with your wife, she sounds like a person with a huge heart! Is she also the gardener who has all those healthy plants growing? Or you, or combined?

❤️❤️❤️ Nice that you each have a dog that chose you, and that they get along so well! She looks like such a sweetheart as well! I can definitely see the cattle dog strongly in her face and head for sure, maybe mixed with a bully breed from her chest/sitting stance, she's built rather like a staffie, although it's super hard to pick out traits from one photo and angle, and when there's more than 2-3 breeds mixed in there, so easy to be mistaken too. Whatever she is, I can confirm the name fits - she's absolutely Precious. ❤️

I feel deceived though! Your name is Oldspartan, but you're not old! I'm not fooled by that fake beard disguise!!


It definitely wouldn't be fair to leave out Patches! What a sweet evening routine, where she knows you'll be sitting down for a while and she can get her fuss. I remember one of our cats always doing that with my dad when he finally sat down of an evening. He was a man who was always doing something and didn't sit down to relax for long, and also claimed not to like cats much since he's a bird and dog person (and he did genuinely hate when they hunted, especially if they killed a bird), but he was just as soft with the cats and they/we always had them, so he protested too much, me thinks. Would often catch him fussing and talking to one of the cats in a really sweet way when he didn't realise anyone was around, and he'd be embarrassed when I'd tease him about how I thought he didn't like cats?

Just a running joke in the family I guess. So when he'd finally sit on the sofa at around 9pm, Cinders would immediately jump onto his lap and sweetly ask for pets, and he'd protest "Hey! What's this! I've only just sat down!" or pretend grumble about not liking cats, while she stretched out on his chest and had plenty of fuss, and they'd both fall asleep there. I have photos of them like that to prove it too! Not on here, but it was lovely.

Patches also looks so much like one of my auntie's cats, Smudge, right down to the facial markings, which is why she named him Smudge. She's a pretty girl! Doesn't look grumpy to me either, just has the same sort of expression I pull when anyone points a camera at me! I feel your camera phobia, Patches, I understand!
The Santa is not me. It is the PetSmart Santa. The arm is mine. I am indeed an elder and let me tell ya after 4 hours of work at the pond today and 6 yesterday I feel every day of my 70 plus years. Not that I mind considering alternatives.

Linda has the green thumb. She just makes use of my back in her gardening endeavors. Not to say she avoids heavy work, she doesn’t but I normally try to dissuade her.
 
The Santa is not me. It is the PetSmart Santa. The arm is mine. I am indeed an elder and let me tell ya after 4 hours of work at the pond today and 6 yesterday I feel every day of my 70 plus years. Not that I mind considering alternatives.

Linda has the green thumb. She just makes use of my back in her gardening endeavors. Not to say she avoids heavy work, she doesn’t but I normally try to dissuade her.

I haven't heard of a PetSmart santa! We don't have them here. I wonder whether our Pets at Home chain stores do anything similar for special holidays, I shall have to check it out.

That's really sweet actually, I noticed the dog toy in his hand. :D It's a cute photo of Precious, too, she looks so happy.

Aaaww, you two remind my of my parents. Same deal with mum having the green thumb (and I've been working hard to care for and keep her houseplants alive, even though I've always been terrible with houseplants, but *touch wood*, haven't done badly with them for a bit over a year now.

Dad did most of the garden hardscape, making the pond, fencing, trellis etc, and they'd work together sometimes with mum instructing what she wanted or needed for a certain thing, and him not wanting her lifting heavy pots or anything like that, and telling her off if she tried! But certainly when she was younger she'd muck right in with the business and any manual labour type stuff, and I'm the same way. I quite enjoy taming, planting, maintaining and seeing the results. There's something so soothing and magical almost about pottering around a garden (in the English sense, meaning the whole space of plants/flowers/pond, not just a plot for growing fruit and veg).

I hope you both enjoy it for many years to come. :)
Both the front and back gardens here have been naturally neglected over the last few years, but I've made a start, and working to tame it again and get it back to how nice it used to be, if not better :D It's just finding the time and needing the right weather. Has been a lot of heavy and constant rain here which delayed cutting the grass and hedges, but it's brightened up the last few days, so did at least give the grass its first cut of the season.
 
@Seisage - sorry to tag, but since you used to work in a vet clinic and you're a research and science/chemistry whizz, do you guys have Advocate flea and tick treatment over there? I'm pretty sure that's a product that's been around for a long time, but it's the cheaper option the vets office suggested today, so if I can't get the collar for some reason I'm wondering about Advocate, in case. Any idea of its effectiveness?

I'm going to google too, trust me, but I'm less confident on accurate sources, and since it's been around a while, I'm wondering if it's lost effectiveness the way Frontline did. Don't want to waste money on the cheaper option only to find it hasn't worked and I still need to buy the more expensive one on top of that!
I can't recommend this personally as Jabu had a really violent negative reaction but I do know many people who swear by it. I found frontline plus works much better than frontline - sorry I saw the post so late as I finally got around to dropping all of Jabu's unused meds in the charity bin and gave away the Yumove. FWIW I found that turmeric (curamycin check spelling!) available on Amazon worked quite well for her arthritis without all the side effects of rheumacam - but it works for some and not for others. Unfortunately the industry makes a lot of money out of pet owners, metacam and its generic alternatives are actually incredibly cheap drugs and typically horse dosages are cheaper than those for dogs and cats - but the concentration is way too high for us to use :(.
 
Ex UK vet nurse… be careful, if treating your pet with a product, to not then use something else. Too many pets have died being overdosed in this way. Find what you can afford and then work with it. Frontline was the original spot on back in the early 90’s and it has become less effective, I know this from experience, 2 rescue kittens and 3mths of the worst flea infection I’ve ever had.

The most important thing is to work with the lifecycle of the parasite.

Fleas main lifecycle is in the house, and there is a growing trend to only treat one animal in the house AND the house. This way you will knock back the house flea burden quickly and the treated animal will be a continual control.

You can get household sprays for a reasonable price, but make sure they treat the larvae as well as the adults in the house. This means the larvae do not get to adulthood to continue the cycle (they do this by stopping the larvae shedding their skins, therefore they cannot continue to grow). Spray carpets etc but also the nooks n crannies i.e. under the sofa pads, down the creases of the sofa, wherever your pet lays a lot. Bedding needs to be washed on a long high cycle. I once took my uniform out of the washing machine at work and watched a flea run across it!

Perhaps just use a flea spray in the house for a few weeks, the cheapest option? I usually use Indorex

Petdrugsonline is the company I use. They were run (don’t know about now) by a Bristol Vets. Good discounts due to their ability to bulk buy. They take prescriptions too. Saved me a fortune with my old lurcher as they were supplying the meds cheaper than my practice could buy them in.
 
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